


The Ichor of Talos

by Nikoshinigami



Series: The Unlikely Death [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Drama, Eventual Romance, Gen, M/M, Murder Mystery, Mystery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-01
Updated: 2014-03-01
Packaged: 2020-06-23 14:58:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 24
Words: 59,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19703737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nikoshinigami/pseuds/Nikoshinigami
Summary: After being convicted of the murder of Sherlock Holmes, Dr. John Watson is sentenced to confinement, therapy, and to the constant companionship of a hologram of his victim to aid in his rehabilitation. While John remains uncertain of his guilt, Sherlock is only too happy to engage in the mystery of his own murder to try and discover why he died and how events set his path to cross with the war-ravaged stranger he's now posthumously bound to.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The re-upload~ If you enjoy this story, please consider purchasing the ACD Holmes and Watson version available from [Amazon](https://www.amazon.com/Unlikely-Death-Adventures-Sherlock-Holmes/dp/1512195464/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=) and most online retailers.

John first met Sherlock Holmes in a crime scene photograph which depicted the young man nude and peacefully laid out with his throat slashed on his blood-soaked bed. His thin arms were crossed below his chest with his limbs tucked close like an open casket viewing with only the wild tendrils of his dark brown curls and the streak of red from the severed Carotid artery to add a mix of chaos to the otherwise precise display of the corpse. No other wounds discolored his pale skin, nothing which the coroner had reported as self-defense or signs of a struggle. Toxicology reports came back positive for benzodiazepines. Ingested, they'd said. He might not have felt a thing.

Not pictured were the man's carefully folded clothes waiting on the chest at the end of his bed, the shoes aligned perfectly under the shadow of the mattress on the floor. Not pictured was the security badge that read "Second Technician" which remained pinned to the left breast of his stacked shirt. These details existed in the accounts of the security team that had found him, classified as strange and ritualistic as part of the overall presentation. Pictured in great detail was the jagged cut made over, and over, and over again until Mr. Holmes' head was nearly separated from his body with sawed marks into the spine proving an ineffectual blade as the only reason they'd found the man intact. And of course, in a separate stack to which the prosecution had rested nearly all of their case, was the picture of John's hands with the crust of blood under his nails that had belonged to none of other than the deceased Sherlock Holmes.

Before the trial, John had never seen the man before. On the date in question, he remembered working in the medical bay, reading over patient files to make sure he'd noted everything despite the bustle of his shift. Then there was nothing. Then there was the blood. The memories started and ended in the medical bay with no definite line between finishing his notations and staring down at his red, crusted fingernails. There was no denying whose blood it was nor that the biohazard disposal shoot contained traces as well, proving the disposal of evidence. John too tested positive for benzodiazepines. Same drug, same man's blood, and no reason at all to believe being strangers should mean Dr. John Watson did not commit murder.

To be fair, the prosecution was very complimentary in their regard for the intelligence that had to have gone into the crime. By dosing both himself and his victim with quantities capable of inducing anterograde amnesia, neither his nor the dead man's memories could be called on in evidence. No testimony could be made in regards to the actions that had transpired which could prove guilt or innocence and had John not metabolized his way back to sobriety before the cleanup was done, he might have managed to have gotten away with it without so much as a guilty conscious. John had never fancied himself a criminal. He'd lost patients but never been a murderer. But he could not explain the blood. Nor how anyone other than a medical officer could have gotten into the medical supply room to obtain the drug themselves. John had the means and the opportunity. The only thing he didn't have was motive. On the basis of irrefutable guilt, such details were allowed to be ignored.

One count of first-degree murder. Indeterminate confinement. Basic rehabilitation--code 087. They fitted him with a one-inch electronic collar and set him in his new home, under lock and key, deep within the less desirable floors of the quasar-class mining ship where the soft hum of the propulsion units was a constant companion to the white-noise of space.

That technically made this the second time John had met Sherlock Holmes. But it was the first time he'd ever spoken to the man.

At exactly twenty-one hundred hours on his first day of incarceration, as prescribed in his sentencing, the collar around John's neck activated. Whatever lights blinked or gears whirled went undetected below the jut of his own chin though his eyes remained fixed on the wall opposite the bunk he sat upon in waiting. It was quicker than he'd expected. What had been empty space was nearly instantly filled instead by a specter of light that flashed bright then settled into shapes and varying hues until the life-like body of a man stood before him as though materialized in the flesh. He wasn't, of course. While holographic technology had managed to blur the lines between the living and the dead, it was still just light. It might have looked like the man, but like a photograph, it was just a rendered capture of his visage. It may have his memories and personality, but it was all just basic one's and zero's programmed to emulate the man it replaced. This was his punishment and the court's choice in his rehabilitation: 087--sympathetic immersion. Know your victim; know the outstanding consequences of your crime. John would have to live for an indeterminate amount of time in the constant companionship of Sherlock Holmes until he truly understood the error of his ways. That part was the most daunting considering he still wasn't convinced of his guilt.

Sherlock looked taller alive--well, switched on. And his eyes were silvery blue. He looked out of place in his beige technicians uniform as he seemed to stand with the stature of one of much greater rank, though his hair was just as messy looking as it had been across the bloody pillow. Sherlock stared at John in confusion for a moment, eyes tracking down to the collar around his neck then around the room where there was not much to see. Bed. Chest. Doorless en suite. Everything was white or a shade or two richer like foam on a cappuccino. The thick door with its sliding compartments wasn't exactly standard issue. Scrunching his nose with his nostrils half flared, the younger man looked quite annoyed as his confusion continued to rank highest among the obvious 'emotions' on display. It wasn't real. It was just a program.

"You?" he asked, seemingly jumping ahead a few paces. The voice emanated from the collar rather than from the solid-looking projection. His dark brows furrowed heavily. "But I don't even _know_ you!"

John cleared his throat as he leaned forward, elbows on knees as he spread his hands placatingly, palms up. "Look, I--"

The dead man put his own hand out to stop him. "No. Murderers don't get to talk. Shut up." He grimaced further, pacing slightly. "How am I dead? I don't remember dying. Why can't I remember? Why would they erase that?" Sherlock's scowl deepened as he seemed to settle on there being only one person available to answer any and all questions. The entire situation was rather conditioned to be that way. No easy way out; full victim confrontation. Still, he was taking it a bit differently from how John had expected. Sherlock's glare was more probing than irate; more confused than angry. He settled both hands on his narrow hips and set his jaw defiantly as he loomed over John, casting no shadow. "Alright, fine. Explain what the hell is going on. No apologies--I'll extract those later. Right now I just want to know why I'm here."

John swallowed his somewhat prepared speech along with the lump that had formed in his throat. "You're here... because you're dead. You were killed. And I'm the person they decided did it."

The hologram smiled thinly, not looking the least bit amused. "Oh. Still pleading innocence, then?" he asked.

"Pleading ignorance," John corrected. It was perhaps a minor thing to the deceased but John wasn't ready to accept the court's ruling as gospel. Just... possible. "We were both drugged. Lost the ability to log our short-term memory while under the influence. Good news is you don't remember being murdered. Bad news is I don't remember killing you. Or if I even did."

"Then why are you here?"

John shrugged, eyes staring down at the cold protective flooring. "Can't prove I didn't snap and go space crazy. Can't prove I didn't have some sort of psychotic episode that I've since repressed. Can't explain why I'd been found with your blood on me if I wasn't in the room when you died."

The hologram hummed in agreement, pacing slightly in the small room. There was a small halo under his feet where the light-beam cast its glow against the floor. "And how did I die?" he asked.

"Exsanguination. Your throat was, uh..." John mimed with his thumb across his neck, head up to best complete it and watching as the dead man's brows lifted high against his forehead as he did. He cleared his throat. "Anyway, there were no signs of anyone trying to stay the bleeding and I certainly didn't go for help so... Here I am. And here you are. And... I am sorry. I'm sure you were a nice guy."

"Oh, _god_ no," Sherlock said, shaking his head. "I'm an obnoxious arsehole. I'm just surprised it wasn't someone I'd had the pleasure of pissing off first."

John froze for a moment, his brain replaying that last bit a few times as the hologram continued to sigh and float just above the floor with a nervous energy that didn't belong to the recently departed. "Sorry, what?"

"I suppose slitting my throat makes sense but I'd rather considered it more likely to be strangled. Definitely a symbolic gesture in the desire to shut me up with the added power of withholding something I desire. Over too quick just to slit the throat." Sherlock breathed out heavily, his right hand fluffing through the curls at the back of his head. "Though I suppose that does give credence to the idea that as my killer, I was unknown to you. Hardly makes sense, though. As a doctor, you'd have plenty of opportunity to kill without going out of your way. So why me?"

"I don't know," John admitted, which only earned him a scowl and a dismissive wave.

"I wasn't talking to you. You've already proven yourself to be completely useless."

Oh, this was going to be lovely. John crossed his arms over his chest as he sat back on his bunk, smiling darkly as he settled in. "Not so useless that the courts don't think I murdered you," he said, not at all concerned with how it sounded. He was beginning to see the truth to the holograms earlier words. He certainly didn't seem to be overflowing in virtues.

"That's because they're idiots." Sherlock rolled his eyes, gesturing gracefully as he spoke. His voice was much deeper than John had expected and seemed even richer as he rattled on at length. "You're an accomplished medical doctor but you've chosen to work on a mining vessel rather than remain stationed planet-side or with a colony. You go where the risks are; you enjoy the excitement. Psychotic episode? Space crazy? Please, you've been found guilty of murder and you're calm as anything. Rather think you're enjoying this a bit. An average man plucked from his average life and made to face the possibility he may not be who he thinks he is? I imagine half the reason they condemned you was because when faced with the possibility of being a murderer, you weren't devastated, you were intrigued."

John did his best not to let his surprise show as his jaw felt heavy and threatened to unhinge. It was somewhat remarkable, really, how the dead man seemed to understand him. It wasn't fake-psychic, generic kind of things that the hologram was spouting. They were very specific and, in some cases, not at all normal. But true. And therefore almost frightening considering there were only a few ways such knowledge could be obtained. "I thought you didn't know me," he said, licking his lips with the taste of old air.

The hologram smirked proudly. "I don't. Honestly, I don't have to. You're as easy to read as See Spot Run. From the terminology you use you're obviously a doctor--unless _exsanguination_ has become colloquial since my demise--and the fact that they saddled you with rehabilitative sentencing says you have a long history of fine service worth trying to reclaim. The rest is all down to your current behavior. You're not scared in the least. I wouldn't say you're having fun but you're not bored either."

"That's.. impressive," John admitted, clearing his throat as greater praise threatened to follow. "Especially for a Second Technician."

"I'm a man of great genius. Just.. limited ambition." Sherlock shrugged his facial features, a petite smile digging into his cheeks in dimple-like fashion. "Besides, I can do much better than that. Just.. off sorts right now."

"Yeah, I uh... I bet. Sort of surprised you're not crying and yelling, honestly."

The hologram raised one eyebrow. "Do you want me to?"

"No. Just... I mean, you have just found out you've died," John reminded him, not quite sure what else to say.

Sherlock shrugged. "And rather like your own incarceration, there's not much either of us can do about that right now. I really rather hope it wasn't you. Not knowing why I was killed is going to annoy me for a very long time."

John nodded, still operating at a loss. This wasn't at all what he'd expected the dead man to be like, nor how he figured most people would cope with death. Maybe there was a program fault, some unforeseen problem arising in harvesting data from a brain whose body was dealing with memory compromising drugs in its system. Maybe. His mannerisms fit with his flippancy, however, and there was an air to him that felt right even when everything about him should have been wrong. A self-professed obnoxious arsehole, maybe he really was this... odd. It seemed John certainly wouldn't have been the first person to find it interesting.

"Maybe they were in love with you," he offered up, trying to give some assistance towards complete death acceptance.

Sherlock laughed, tipping his head back on the rumble of a chuckle before looking down at John and going still. "Oh, you're serious," he said, with genuine surprise arching his brows.

"Well, I mean, you were naked with your head nearly sawn off. Spent a couple hours explaining to the court that I don't have latent homosexual urges manifest as violent passion."

The hologram's eyes went wide, a strange smile pulling at his lips. "Why didn't you tell me that earlier? That's _much_ more interesting than just having my throat slit. Do you have pictures? Can we get the files?"

"You want to look at your own dead body?" John asked, though the question was unnecessary given how plainly the other man spoke.

"Obviously."

"That's... Yeah, okay. Given what's supposed to happen here, I think they'd probably allow that." After all, he was supposed to be a repenting man facing the reality of his crimes. They were probably just waiting to give them to him anyway as a cell warming gift once he'd had a chance to settle in. Something nice to put on the walls. A splash of color.

Sherlock clapped his hands in front of himself, no sound emitting in their joining. "Excellent. The sooner the better. Any luck and we can get your appeal case ready before any of this becomes horrendously dull. No offense, I just really don't think it was you."

"None taken," John said, thinking twice about extending his hand to the not-quite stranger as a part of their meeting they'd bypassed nagged lightly at the back of his skull. "My name's John, by the way. John Watson."

"Sherlock Holmes," the hologram returned despite there really not being a need. He smiled and twirled as he took in the small room, eyes searching their cell as he seemed to probe and investigate everything in all ways he could.

He wasn't at all the man John'd thought he'd be. This hadn't gone at all the way he'd expected. And odd as it was to find himself trapped in the company of the strange specter, John found it to be more a perk than a punishment. Whatever his incarceration was going to be, it was not going to be boring. Trying not to smile, he swung his legs across the bed and settled down, not wishing to disturb as the hologram continued to look about and err with each attempt to touch.


	2. Chapter 2

"Why is there only one bed?" Sherlock asked as he continued into hour two of driving John absolutely crazy. He took back everything kind he'd ever thought about the man in the admittedly short amount of time he'd known him. Sherlock Holmes was every bit the obnoxious arsehole he'd said he was and perhaps maybe even a little bit more.

John considered himself a progressive man in many ways. He believed in expanded rights for machines with artificial intelligence and had signed a petition once while in the space corps to recognize android partnerships. As a person who worked and lived with intelligent machines, he knew there was a very large difference between a programmable toaster and a four-thousand series android when it came to comprehending emotion and demonstrating free thought. But neither of those were truly human. Neither deserved to be treated as humans. Not entirely. Respect and common courtesy were deserved to anything that operated in service to mankind but he wasn't going to treat them as an equal. They were machines at their core and following their programming. And as far as John and most civilized society was concerned, holograms were just the same. The blueprint might have been human, but the product was machine. They weren't real--just projections of light. And they most certainly did not need beds.

With the back of his head cushioned under his own crossed arms above the thin, fiber stuffed pillow, John sighed loudly and stared up at the ceiling, trying to ignore the hologram that continued to pace annoyingly and ignore his attempts at sleep. "You can't even touch a bed. Why would they give you one?" he asked, not bothering to point out the even more obvious point that the hologram didn't need to sleep.

The logical appeal had no effect. "No bed, no chair, no personal space in the least. This is a cell for one!" the dead man shouted, kicking at the bed to the benefit of John's point as his foot phased through the solid surface. It only seemed to make him angrier.

John rolled his eyes. "Well, there is only one person in it."

"Only one living person," Sherlock corrected, leaning over the bed to be sure he was still very much in John's sight. "I'm here as well. That makes two."

"Not in the eyes of the court."

"Then the courts are wrong! I never agreed to this."

John groaned as he rolled over on his side, closing his eyes to try and block him out. Their conversation did little to wind him down towards sleep and with shock still clinging to the outset of his mood, sleep was very much a high point on John's overall agenda. "Not really anything I can do about that," he muttered, tugging the blanket up over his chest as he took a deep breath and let the darkness push everything else aside. There was the fizzle of ambient sounds from his collar but no words as Sherlock seemed to move on from his pestering to whatever else it was that holograms did. It wasn't exactly part of John's field of knowledge. But the quiet was nice and the darkness behind his lids a comfort as he curled up with his knees resting at the edge of the thin mattress.

He was only a few breaths into near slumber before frustration groaned across the airwaves.

"Get up!" Sherlock ordered, his voice miles above a whisper. "We need to speak to the warden about this."

John taco'd his head in the pillow. "About what? Sherlock, I'm _trying_ to _sleep_."

"Exactly. What am I supposed to do while you sleep? They didn't equip me with a self-propelling transceiver. I can't even leave the room."

"You're not here to go about your life after death. You're here to punish me and help me repent," he said, biting his tongue on the quip that the dead man was already proving quite skilled in the former. His patience was thin between the hours of tired and awake and Sherlock's insistence was not helping enamor him any to anyone besides the hero that had shut him up the last time.

"Boring," the dead man groaned. "Pointless besides, since this whole argument stems from your need for sleep. Am I meant to just stand here?"

"Probably."

"I guess it was silly of me to think punishing the victim was beyond the scope of our judicial system. I was murdered and now I have to spend my time trapped in a cell with nothing to do?"

"You're not real," John said, stretching back out on his back as he flopped his head against his pillow once more, eyes squeezed shut in his own obstinate refusal. "You're not actually a human being; you don't have the same rights. If you're bored, shut yourself down. I'm sure you've got a power-saver mode or something."

Sherlock's response was not immediate. John could feel the bristling in the air as though the other man were truly standing there, staring down at him, emitting waves of disapproval and charging the atmosphere with aggression. It was sympathetic displacement; he knew that instinctively, but with his eyes closed it still felt like he could actually feel the man looming there. When his voice did come across through the speakers, it was cold and clipped like droplets of water growing fat before dispersal off the sharp point of an aging icicle. "Quite the bedside manner you've got there, doctor. Clearly, they forgot to take your profession into account when they were doling out sentencing. Balance of probability, I suppose most doctors hold antiquated notions as to what can be defined as life."

John pulled his blanket in tight again. "If anything were to happen to you, they'd call an electrician or a mechanic," he explained. "You have as much right to function as any other human emulating machine but don't expect me to go out of my way to worry about your feelings. We both know you don't have any. Now I am sorry, but I am tired and I need to sleep. We can argue about the application of basic human liberties in the morning." He rolled over onto his other side, his back towards the room though the cold shoulder was hardly an appropriate application when arguing with a hologram. His head hurt with exhaustion, though. His bones hurt. Just a few hours of sleep and it'd be alright. His jaw stretched with a shoulder-synching yawn.

Not that it mattered. Not that anything he said or did mattered to Sherlock. "I am not artificial intelligence. I am not a synthetic creation."

"You're not even physically there. You're a series of computer programs being broadcast and materialized as a light-synthesized recreation of someone who is dead. The only reason you have a visible form at all is because testing showed inmates responded more sympathetically when they could see as well as hear their victims." John stopped short of actually citing the research journal he'd read during an elective course in psychology. It was recommended for most people looking to join the space corps whether in arms or under the sigil of snakes: Human/A.I. Displacement and Interaction. There was a reason androids weren't made to look like human beings. There was a line drawn, an exception of empathy, and only holograms were accepted to cross it. Under controlled circumstances.

"Well, I suppose it should be a comfort that I'm not actually feeling sorry for myself, I'm just a confused piece of software," Sherlock spat, his tone not at all conducive to whatever sympathetic response he was trying to elicit.

John ducked his chin below the blanket. "It's a function of your design. You're emulating. And I'm _exhausted_ ," he groaned, and tried once more to stuff his head between the pillow's ends in such a way as to drown him out.

"I don't feel like I'm just emulating," the dead man muttered. And either through acceptance or force of nature, John found the peace in which to finally fall asleep.

It wasn't so much as he was aware he was asleep as he was aware of himself waking up with basic knowledge of the interim. Trying to ignore Sherlock turned into blinking at the wall, eyes slightly watering from the insistence of the overhead lights as he yawned and found every sore muscle from a night's rest aching to be stretched and unwound from his tense, blanket cocoon. He was practically hugging his knees. He rolled back over with his arms over his face, shielding his eyes as he let the sleep melt off him, tasted his own mouth, and breathed in deep to settle against a complacent sigh. As far as prison beds were concerned, John didn't have much to complain about. He liked a firm surface and one could hardly call it cramped. If he could just do something about the inane prattling of his companion, it might even be a rather comfortable new home. Bright side to incarceration: he didn't have to pull his shift today. Really, Sherlock was the only thing he was going to have to get a handle on. Full-time occupation, that. At least he wouldn't be bored.

Turning his head, John could see the hologram of the man 'sitting' on the floor, his eyes closed as though he too were asleep. Impossible, obviously. Probably a sleep mode or... well, John wasn't a programmer. He certainly admired their skill, though. The physics that went into the way the hologram's hair moved alone was nothing short of artful. He would have thought static details like flat hair and clothing would have been preferred to the realism John found in the display. Even the chest moved as though he were breathing, the brown uniform expanding in slow, even motions. It was extremely lifelike. Unconscionably so. Looking at him on the floor when John himself had a bed gave him a twinge of guilt that he knew was undeserved. Though if the dead man felt as real as he looked, no wonder he was having such a hard time accepting the fact that he wasn't really alive anymore. But that was dangerous thinking and not to be followed up on. No matter how lifelike, it still wasn't life. Rarely was a lesson more instilled than that.

In case of a fire, the order of rescue was simple: human, animal, machine. On a battlefield, in a collapsed mine, sectioning off floors due to containment leaks with little to no evac time to spare, it always followed the same course. You saved anyone who needed a doctor first, anything that had need of a vet second, and if it could be rebooted, you didn't bother with it unless absolutely necessary. John wouldn't have given a second thought to a block-faced android standing sentry in the room rather than given its own accommodations. The difference, John supposed, was that an android knew it was a machine. Sherlock, though apparently very accepting of the certainty of his death, hadn't quite gotten around to accepting his new status as a hologram. It'd only been a day. Maybe John was expecting too much. Handling someone else's existential crisis was a little more than he'd bargained for, though. It was... cruel. If such terms could be used to describe actions done against machines. Sherlock was right--he hadn't asked for this. And his comfort had certainly not been on anyone's agenda to cater to.

As though aware he was being watched, Sherlock's dark lashes fluttered against his cheek, eyes moving beneath his closed lids. Muscle memory had been part of the extraction, it seemed. There was an innateness in the movements that were as much Sherlock as his demanding speech. The hologram squinted then looked up, frowning with morning confusion at a face he didn't seem to immediately recall. Then there was the slow slip of memory in the frown that turned his lips as he looked at himself, then at John, then at the door. There was a single tray of food waiting on the door's ledge. Everything for one; one bed, one seat, one meal. Sherlock sighed and leaned his head against the wall. "I'm not hungry anyway," he said.

John nodded quietly and stood up to retrieve it.


	3. Chapter 3

"Tell me about yourself, John."

John breathed in deeply though his nose, trying not to show in any outward display the sick feeling he felt in his stomach as he sat across from the gentle-voiced woman. He didn't care for psychologists. On a professional level he had nothing but the utmost respect for people who looked after the mental and emotional health of the bodies his own work set to mend. It was a science and an art form, a way of looking at people and guiding them to healthy self-actualization. Professionally they were two sides of the same coin, a coin sent spinning till the image on one side seemed to trap or merge with the other. But John was not here as Dr. Ella Thompson's equal in the healing arts. He was her patient. He was under her thumb. And he'd had rather his fill of other people telling him about who he was, what he was capable of, and what it all meant deep inside his head.

Reclining in his chair, left leg crossed at the knee of his right, John kept a firm jaw with teeth slightly clenched as he stared back into her unflinching, dark eyes. They were beautiful eyes; the kind that drew everything in like a black hole and left no hope for release. Not bleak eyes but consuming eyes. John found it an interesting struggle to openly stare into them. He nodded towards her lap and to the folder resting under the point of her pen. "You have my file," he said, playing himself off as cool and collected, not insubordinate but not one to waste his time or his words.

Ella's calm nature poised to draw him in with as much power as her eyes. "I have a list of accomplishments," she corrected, breaking off the stare herself as she glanced at the file, tapping the closed end of her writing instrument against the sheets tabbed and secured within. "I don't have anything that tells me about you outside of them though."

"Not much to tell."

She smiled slightly, head angled as she read, not in the least unprepared for difficult, close-lipped men. "You served two years in the Simulant Wars," she read, voice curling up at the end of the sentence as though this was news, this was interesting, and this warranted some comment from him as well.

John shrugged. "Till I was injured, yes."

"Can you tell me about your injury?"

John frowned. "They don't write these things down?" he asked. Whether they did or not, Ella didn't say. John sighed, grinding his back teeth once more as he tapped his fingers against the arms of his chair. "Shot by a Simulant boarding party while recovering wounded soldiers from their barricades at the front-lines. Healed just fine but I got sick. Got weak. Got discharged; got a new job." Sometimes he could still feel the heat of the bulkheads and hear the screams of engines tearing through the reserve fuel as they struggled to limp out of range from laser fire. Sometimes he could still hear the metallic groan of the Simulant voices, their assimilated bodies, neither fully man nor machine, granting no limit to the joy they felt at even their own destruction in their hatred of all things human and humanoid. That wasn't important to mention, though. She hadn't asked and he didn't care to tell.

Ella nodded, pen hovering over some unseen line of print. "Must be hard to leave all that violence and fear on the front lines after being exposed to it for so long."

John shrugged. "You tell me."

She frowned slightly, not entirely impressed. "War changes us in ways we don't expect," she said, not exactly a leading question but certainly an opening to divulge.

"Not to call bullshit or anything but most things do. War's not special in that respect."

Ella arched a brow curiously at him, and set to making a few notes before looking up again.

If John could have one wish, it would be that he didn't have to be here. He'd half convinced himself he was looking forward to it when it became explained to him that Sherlock would not be allowed in--would have to be turned off for the duration. An a hour without Sherlock was a gift from on high after two days of sleepless agony under his penetrative stare. If Ella's eyes were a black hole, Sherlock's were a meteor. Ella waited to be told things, winding one further and further towards her intent with leading questions and careful inferences. Sherlock hit you head on and seemed to enjoy the splatter of detritus. John was very tired of the attention; wanted to be left alone. Ella at least was much easier to ignore as he tapped his fingers and wiggled his foot to a beat set by his own internal metronome.

"I see they've paired you with a hologram," she said at last, though the ignorance was poorly framed given he still wore the collar--inactive or not.

John humored her with a nod, trying not to express the stupidity of the question in the scrunching of his brow.

"Has it helped?"

"No," John admitted, forcing a humorless smirk. "But after two nights, I have a bit more sympathy for the guy who finally snapped and ended up literally trying to take his head off."

She frowned and wrote that down--he hated that she wrote that down. It was jut a joke, gallows humor, and really what did she expect? After two days was he supposed to go on at length about the value of the life that had been lost and how terrible he felt faced with the reality of what he'd stolen away from the rest of the world? Sherlock was bossy, arrogant, selfish, condescending, and had zero consideration for anyone other than himself. The only thing John cared about was the absence of a good night's sleep. He wasn't altogether sure how much longer he could take the rather cruel and unusual punishment that was being shackled with Sherlock Holmes.

"How long have you been off your medications, John?"

John's jaw clenched, his tongue only barely making it to safety after wetting his lips. Maybe he didn't really want her relying on his file after all. "I don't need them," he told her, keeping his eyes down for a moment as he waited for the stone in his stomach to settle. Was the hour over yet?

"You were diagnosed with depression and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder when you were discharged," she read, her fingers intertwining above the open folder with the pen tipping in between the weave of the index row. "You were supposed to seek counseling for at least a year after you left the service. That was six months ago."

"Well, they were wrong. I'm fine."

Ella frowned. "You've been convicted of a murder you are said to have committed during a psychotic episode."

"And they said I was a threat to myself," he joked, breathing out through his nose in a silent laugh. It wasn't funny. She wasn't even smiling. Humor was not a defensive strategy that was going to do him any good here. He swallowed and leaned forward in his chair, legs uncrossed as he sought a bit of stability in his posture. "Don't put me back on them," he said, returning to a sober tone that hung humor far aside. "I don't want to be that zombie again. I can't live like that. I'm handling it. This is all just... bad timing."

Ella continued to frown, her pen tapping once again on the page. "John, I'm going to recommend-"

"No. No. You want to talk to me? I'm here; let's talk. How do I feel about being convicted of Sherlock's murder? Angry. Because if I did it, then I am a monster I never thought I could be. And if I didn't, then I don't deserve any of this. And yeah, I'll joke about him being the most insufferable bastard I have ever had the misfortune to meet but I saw what happened to him and no one deserves that. I hate that none of this makes sense to me, I hate my cell, I hate coming here to talk to you, I hate putting up with him, and I hate watching him forget what he is because every time his hand goes through something, I can see in his face that he's only just remembered that he's dead. I hate that I can't do anything for him. Everything that sets him off is outside my control but I've got to deal with it because I can't fix it." If he breathed, he hadn't felt it. If he paused or stuttered, it hadn't left a mark. His chest felt tight but he didn't dare exhale. If she wanted more words, he had them. He had words in abundance. He wasn't playing anymore. All she had to do was ask. He'd rather write a million books of sentences all starting with the words ' _I feel_ ' than be fed on bottle caps of little white and red pills someone was paid to stand and watch him take.

Ella sighed, leaning forward in her own seat. "John, the medications will help you. It just takes time to get used to them."

"I'll come twice a week."

"John, this isn't--"

"I put a pistol to my head and pulled the trigger last time," John spat, fingernails digging into the armrest. "I pulled the trigger _five times_ but it wouldn't discharge. The cartridge jammed. I didn't have a spare. I flushed the pills instead and enlisted on this ship. I'm being punished enough, don't you think? I'll talk. I am talking. This is alright, isn't it?"

The woman opposite him was very quiet, her silence almost stunned. She'd said it herself, hadn't she? Things in life change people in ways they don't expect. John didn't need those pills to leave behind the effects of war. War was a part of him. And living every day in a mist of unfeeling was far removed from the cure he required in handling his affliction. "Twice a week, then," she said, accepting his offer to exchange therapy for drugs. "Is there anything else you want to talk about today?"

John pursed his lips, shaking his head as he allowed himself a final, deep exhale. "If it's alright with you, I think I've said enough for one day."

Ella nodded, her acceptance granted. She capped the pen in her hand and tucked the flap against the press-board, sealing the file with the pen's persistent hug. "I know it takes some adjusting to, John, but Sherlock is there to help you. Maybe one day if he can forgive you, you can learn to forgive yourself."

"Honestly, he's about as convinced of my guilt as I am," John said, allowing himself to smirk in jest as he tried to leave his anxiety behind him in the chair that now carried the half moon imprint of his sweating palms on its arms.

"Well," she said, smiling kindly as he stood. "then at least you have something in common."

John nodded, jaw set and heartbeat heavy, as he turned to thoughts of refuge in his cell. Ella raised a hand to stay him, though, and held out a separate press-board file for him to take.

"They said you'd asked for your case file. I wasn't sure it was such a good idea but as you are still wrestling with guilt and obviously are keeping in mind what's best for your mental stability, I think maybe it will help."

John eyed the manilla folder for only a second before slowly taking it from her loose grasp, folding over the cover to see if the contents were as she described them to be. Pinned to the front page was the crime scene photograph of the bloody bed and the naked body with plastic pouches holding further photographic evidence in safety from sliding out. John closed the cover and tucked the folder against his chest with one arm as he nodded a silent thanks for the fulfillment of his request.

Ella smiled further as she stood, either pleased with the day's progress or expecting progress in their future. She certainly stood as though she'd won and John honestly had to give it to her. "Take care of yourself, John. I'll see you in a couple days."

Nodding, John turned sharply and left the room, pushing back all other thoughts and concerns as he kept the folder tightly closed and listened for the static that would mark Sherlock's return.


	4. Chapter 4

John didn't have words as he laid the pictures out on the floor, laying them out like tiles on the hard ground so that nothing overlapped and his companion could look through them undisturbed. John had already seen them before and had had his own time to confront the images and the feeling of being accused of such violence. This... this wasn't the same.

As a doctor, John was extremely practiced in seeing things with detachment. Bodies were a job, not a person. They were puzzles and marathons and everything that put the human element aside so that blood, hearts and kidneys were just things to work with and parts of a whole. People were distractions. People were mothers and fathers, siblings and friends. People left a mark. In court, the pool of images now on his cell floor had been of a corpse, something deceased and in rigor with a very obvious cause of death. With Sherlock's shoulder nearly phasing through his own as he kneeled anxiously at John's side, it was much harder not to see the pattern of curls that graced his temples to be the same as those on the pillow. It was hard not to recognize his nose in the photographs as the one he'd watched wrinkle and flare with animated annoyance in the days prior. And that twinge was back, that shift of discomfort that settled in his chest. Perhaps it would have been better if they hadn't given these to him, though it certainly put him in the awkward position of facing what he hadn't realized he hadn't taken in.

Unable to pick the photographs up, Sherlock rested both his palms against the ground and brought his face to them instead, twisting his neck and shifting his body to get the angle he wanted and the zoom he required. It was odd to watch the photographs fail to react to being shuffled over and moved between. Sherlock looked like a bloodhound with his face to the floor. John flipped through the coroners' report for something a little more his style.

"It doesn't make any sense," the hologram grumbled, all but pressed against the ground as he made do. He looked more than a little ridiculous, especially with his arse in the air as he crawled on his knees, but John managed not to be a dick about it given their current task, wont as he was to break stress with a smile. Instead, he gave him room, a bit of respect shown in giving him the same berth he would a real man who could take up real space.

"What doesn't?" he asked, setting the coroner report on his knees from his bedside perch.

Sherlock sat back on his heels with a grimace, thick brows heavy and furrowed deep. "I was conscious when this happened but I didn't fight back," he reported darkly, pointing to one of the many images. "Look at the sheet. When you lay a body on a bed, it's very easy to simply approach it and place them down lengthwise. When a person gets into bed themselves, though, they often sit and then twist their body into the proper position. There's a slight pull in the sheet exactly where you'd expect there to be if I had sat down on the side of the bed first, then shifted so as to lay down."

Whatever John had expected the dead man to find in the photographs, it hadn't been something so.... new. Putting the file down, John slid to the floor and picked up instead the photo Sherlock pointed to, bringing it up to his face to see for himself the small ridge in the sheet outside the left flank and the corresponding pull to the material on the right. "That's... observant," he said, wondering now how anyone had missed it and yet still impressed to know someone had not. "Wow. Uh, no, yeah, they uh... They said you were _unconscious_ when it happened. Killed first then undressed as a sort of closure to the fantasy."

Sherlock shook his head, waving his hand over another section of images. "The clothes are folded with my preferred folding method--I'm very picky. It makes more sense that I undressed myself and then took care of my clothes as I removed them than that someone did it for me and mimicked my methods while I was sitting there. The only difference is that I always remove my ID badge first and here it's very plainly still attached. So someone was in the room with me at the time, causing me to defect from ritual either under stress or direct order."

"So.. someone made you undress for them."

"Apparently." Sherlock's voice tipped towards annoyance, the first hint of any emotion outside confusion since John had set the pictures down. "Side effects of the drug?" he asked.

John shrugged. "All it does is impair memory retention outside basic pain relief. Wouldn't account for docility or susceptibility to suggestion." He watched the way Sherlock chewed on his bottom lip unevenly and the way his blue eyes had churned into a peppermint shade. John picked up one of the full frame photos and held it up so he wouldn't have to hunch to view it. "There's no bruising or signs of friction burns," he said, ghosting his finger over the areas he didn't care to name. "I know it probably seems like they missed a lot but they did specifically check for any signs of _that_."

Sherlock's scowl deepened slightly as though annoyed John would think he'd be concerned with such things. But his eyes did follow the areas John directed him to, and he released his bottom lip from the imagined pressure of his teeth. "Right," he said, looking back towards the rest of the photos on the floor. "Good."

John put the picture back down and pulled the folder back towards himself, scooting away to grant Sherlock room once more as he quieted in his own reflection. It seemed quite a loss that they hadn't bothered to include Sherlock in the criminal proceedings. No memory of the murder didn't mean he was useless to the end of pointing out his killer. Five minutes with nothing but photographs and he'd already found flaws in the official story. He hadn't died peacefully in his sleep. He'd been approached by his killer, threatened by him, and then... then somehow made to just accept his death. There were flaws to the story but the details bore out in evidence. John read the coroner's report in more detail this time, not simply skimming, as he tried to reason some final clue that might explain letting someone act out their murderous intent. There really wasn't anything written that he couldn't already recall from memory. Nothing with answers. He sighed, letting the pages flip down with the press of his thumb against the edge of their rounded ends, the sound like a zipper as they snapped down and stacked. "Reports said the drug was ingested. What did you eat?"

Shrugging, Sherlock sat back on his heels again, leaving his macabre collage alone for a moment as he gave John his attention instead. "Nothing of consequence. It wasn't in the food--too random and difficult to coordinate. I had a headache. Took the pills in my supply chest. Doesn't matter whether you wear earplugs or not, the noise on G deck is unconscionable."

John smirked a little, nodding along as he came to the last page in the stack. "Wouldn't be the first person to say that. So you think someone got into the pill case, then?"

"Easy enough to do. It's standard issue with the cart and I don't exactly keep my eye on it at all times. Just grab the tool I need and drag it along."

"Wouldn't that be random too, though?" John asked. "I mean, what if you didn't take a pill?"

Sherlock shrugged his features, nose crinkling as his upper lip folded in closer to it. "You've never even been to G deck and you've heard its reputation. My killer likely arranged for the dispenser breakdown knowing that by the time I got done, I'd have a cracking headache and would go for the closest remedy. It allows them the chance to gain access to my cart at any point in that day, build an alibi, and all without having to engage me at all. Then it was just a matter of not approaching me until the drug was in effect so that they weren't even a blip in my memory."

John had to smirk at that. It was so plausible as to be likely. "That's... amazing," he said, wondering if he himself would have been able to have so easily worked out such a scenario from only a given fact and a knowledge of his own habits. Sherlock made it sound easy--obvious even. But John had been there in court and had heard the speculations. Not one person had suggested Sherlock might have accidentally dosed himself or paused to consider how a killer might orchestrate such an event as to make it an eventuality. If they thought the drug use alone was clever, they were going to find themselves very impressed by their murderer indeed after hearing Sherlock's speculations.

The hologram was slightly less than impressed. "Doesn't help your case, any," he said. And no, it didn't. It still allowed for John's presence in the medical bay. It made sense of every alibi while Sherlock's murder was set before finally being staged. It didn't explain the blood on his hands.

"No," John admitted. "but it's... it's brilliant. Quite astounding, really."

Perhaps a simple trick of light, Sherlock's cheeks seemed to darken with a rosy hue as he tucked his chin, and stared down at the floor. "Thanks," he muttered, seemingly put off guard by the praise.

That sort of humility was not something John had come to expect from the specter. He smiled wider, crossing his legs as he leaned back into the frame of his bed. "And you're really just a Second Technician?" he asked, not able to hide the slightly demeaning tone. Surely they both knew such a job had been beneath him.

Sherlock shrugged, though his brows were arched higher, his eyes wider, and there ghosted a smile at the corner of his lips. "While on this ship, yes."

"And back on Earth?"

"I was something of a private detective," he said. His smile deepened. " _Consulting_ detective, actually. Only one in the world."

An extinct profession, it now seemed. But John smiled back, not entirely sure he believed him, but more than willing to buy into the fantasy when it mattered very little in the end. "Sounds a lot more glamorous than cleaning out hose pipes."

Sherlock nodded, his fingers lacing together under his chin as his elbows came to rest on his bent knees as he shifted to 'lean' against the opposite wall. "I'd spent my whole life in my brother's shadow. Thought it might be a nice adventure to just get off the planet for a while. So, I applied for a brainless, base level position and... here I am. Out among the stars."

"Strange way to take a holiday."

"My mind rebels against stagnation," he said, and proof thereof was hardly needed. "I required something to do. This was... something."

John nodded, listening, finding himself compelled to do little else. John had always considered himself a rather succinct man who didn't bother with idle chatter. Sherlock could speak for weeks on end and John was rather sure not one second of it would be lacking in relevance. There was something strange about him, really. More than just a keen eye and way with thoughts, he seemed to exude a level of genuine importance not just there for display and his own hubris. He was special. Really and truly. And he was gone by all reasonable dismay. "Why would anyone want to kill you?" John found himself asking, aware, perhaps, he might have been staring and that silence had taken hold.

Sherlock raised one brow. "Thought that was becoming increasingly obvious."

"No, yeah, you can test anyone's patience but this is... this is more than that."

Sherlock's head cocked slightly at that, the peppermint in his eyes shifting to silver as his brows knitted above his nose. He looked down at the floor between them where the images still rested as a precise grid of imprecise images--white, flesh, and red. "What do you see?" he asked, tapping the toe of his shoe towards the carpeting display. "Considering what we've established, what do you see when you look at these photographs?"

John looked and cleared his throat, lips licked moist to brush the hesitation away. "I see planning. Foresight."

The holograph shook his head. "I'm naked in my bed, he's got a knife, and I let him slit my throat. What do you _see_?"

He shrugged, more unwilling to speak than unable to answer.

Sherlock took a deep breath, lips pursed slightly. John could tell he'd hoped for better. "Power," he said, sweeping his arm out over the breadth of the photographs. "There's an implied threat we can't see in these that is more terrifying than the knife and less acceptable than death. Nudity is not always a mark of sexual fantasy--the fact that he did not act on the glaringly obvious opportunity speaks volumes to that. Everything about this is about power. I am symbolically and in all ways stripped of everything including my own will to live. Toxicology says there were no other drugs in my system so it's not a matter of delusion, it's a matter of humiliation and death being a better choice than whatever alternative was given."

John's jaw locked tight, the muscles flexing as he _saw_ the way that Sherlock had seen. All from photographs. All from a wrinkle in the sheets that said he'd been awake and the logical conclusion of the elements aligned. John rubbed at his chin, the scratch of stubble rough as his fingers drew across his mouth. "This is fucked up," he all but whispered, unable to unsee the details Sherlock brought before him.

The hologram nodded, a slight mirthless smile crowning the desolate review. "This man outthought me at every step of the way; everything planned, everything known, and everything working out perfectly. And a man with that much power isn't one to use it needlessly." He steepled his fingers at his lips, head tilted in an obvious posture of deep thought as his silver irises blossomed to blue once more in the shifting kaleidoscope of his eyes. "More than just what I don't remember are the things I don't know that I know. Something so innocuously terrible that I needed to die to keep it a secret. Something I was made to understand before he murdered me that made me accept _this_."

John watched and he listened, the certainty within him growing with every moment shared as they stayed sat on his floor. He didn't do this. He didn't kill this man. And that was hardly the good news he'd thought it would be when it meant the psychopath behind it all was somewhere on the ship they shared, wandering free.


	5. Chapter 5

Lestrade was a greying man John had only seen a few times since the ship's deployment whose olive uniform and beige tie were worn like a second skin. Friendly but down to business, his type had always seemed a bit phony to John when they smiled with their lips and not their eyes. Lestrade wasn't fooling John in the slightest with tightly pulled lips and a wrinkled jaw. The inspector was just waiting for trouble, especially from John, and was used to baiting confidence with a smile. Still, it was nice of him to come and listen at all, though his displeasure in their tale showed he had some regrets in regards to the decision.

"And you're basing this all on the assumption that he was awake when he just let someone slit his throat," the inspector summarized, neither his tone nor his face betraying his own thoughts to the likelihood of the scenario. He laid the photographs back down on the table on his side of the energy field, the glossy stack and the man both kept out of John's reach by threat of electrocution should he touch the bristling opaque divider.

Sherlock didn't mind the field at all. He ghosted between the two sides, standing well within the boundaries of personal space as he continued to challenge the official. He looked a bit like a cat, all fluffed up and trying to look taller as he scowled with fueled indignity at the greying man. "Look at the sheet, look at the folded clothes, it's all there," he all but spat. He'd been trying to command his attention since the moment the inspector had arrived. The results made his attempts those of a mad man.

Lestrade didn't even look as though he'd heard him, still staring back at John as he spoke though he fueled his speech on the back of Sherlock's words. "Sheet could have gotten like that in a hundred different ways and the folding could be a coincidence. What you're really asking me to believe is that someone would just let themselves be murdered rather than be unable to do anything about it because they were rendered unconscious. Are you claiming assisted suicide, now?"

"With signs of attempted decapitation? Are you stupid as well as deaf?" Sherlock growled.

John frowned, shaking his head. "No. I'm not saying Sherlock wanted to die. Just that... the guy who did this put a lot of planning into it. One psychotic episode isn't enough to accomplish everything this killer had to have done to orchestrate this."

The inspector shrugged, hands in his pockets as he leaned back in casual display. "Sorry, John. It's definitely some creative detective work but I've got to go with my gut on this. You were found, literally, with his blood on your hands. Got an explanation for that part?"

"Nothing more than my own gut feeling," John admitted, though for the first time since the crime, he actually felt some assurance in that wavering dread. "I was framed," he said. The words themselves tasted bitter and trite.

Lestrade sighed again but angled his eyes towards Sherlock for once, disapproval written in every line of his brow. "You're supposed to be helping him come to terms with this stuff, not filling his head up with doubts."

The mock look of shock on Sherlock's face was over the top in its theatrics as he even went so far as to lay his fingers above his heart to still its phantom beating and the excitement of his lying breath. "Oh, are we speaking to me now? Am I a part of this conversation? Shall we go back, then, to the part where I explain to you that I'm right and you stop buying into the convenient lie in order to accept the obvious truth?" He straightened and returned to towering superiority, looking  
down his nose at the shorter man as though still offended. Probably was. "Check the activity log for dispenser unit G4-5. The murderer or one of his little helpers will have been the last person to have used it before its malfunction."

"You want to talk about malfunction?" Lestrade asked, not backing down in the least from the specter of light.

Sherlock's eyes rolled as he turned away, sulking towards the far corner with arms crossed over his chest. "Oh, please, do forgive me for being capable of independent thought," he muttered, expression sour before his squared shoulders and the curly locks of the back of his head were the only sight facing the room.

Lestrade shook his head, lips thin with his own exasperation before turning to John with an almost apologetic openness in his eyes. "These things deal with their deaths in all kinds of ways," he said, gesturing towards Sherlock with a tilt of his chin. "You want him turned off for a bit? Clear your head? Seems he's kind of winding you up."

It was perhaps the kindest offer anyone had made since his incarceration. A few hours of silence, of time alone, a chance to rest without someone babbling in his ear about one thing or another. But John saw out the corner of his eyes the way the muscles imagined under Sherlock's skin tensed and the slight pull of his shoulders as he kept silent and still. "Nah, he's fine," John said, not immediately sure why he felt inclined to base decision on false sympathies. Maybe it was the adrenalin talking--the buzz from those eureka moments that still sizzled in his veins. Maybe it was just several hours of working side by side in interesting, cordial conversation. But John really didn't care very much for the way the inspector all but ignored Sherlock as though he wasn't really there. Hypocritical, maybe, but it didn't feel right when other people did it. They weren't the ones he kept up all night. They hadn't earned the right to simply tune him out.

Lestrade shrugged, apparently not one to argue with preference. "Okay. If he doesn't settle down after a couple days, let me know. This sort of rehabilitation isn't for all cases. Might just be better off without this."

"Thanks. Yeah, no, I'll, uh... I'll keep that in mind."

The inspector gave a short nod and let himself out, the electric field staying in place until the man disengaged it from the other side of the locked door. Not that it mattered. John stayed seated on his bed, rubbing his face as hope slid from his mind and settled like lead in his stomach. He wasn't sure what more he or Sherlock could do with the case from inside the cell but he felt rather sure that had been their best and perhaps only chance to try and summon up help from outside. He was lucky, really, that most law enforcement on the ship viewed him as unfortunate rather than dangerous. Unstable, maybe, but not ill-intentioned. He could still talk to people and not be immediately compartmentalized as a monster unfit to breathe the same recycled air. Maybe next time, then. Maybe if the barrister felt inclined to revisit his case. But John didn't dare hope all the same.

Alone again, more or less, John watched as Sherlock continued to stand facing the white, flat panels of the far wall, unmotivated to move despite the absence of their guest. His beige shirt still expanded with deep, pointless breaths. He was used to seeing the other man go off on tangents and rage across the room as he'd done in the inspector's face. Quiet and obviously affected, Sherlock's new demeanor was somewhat unsettling in its stark contrast. It was almost sweet in a way if John allowed himself to imagine that the hologram was upset on his behalf for the absence of promise to follow through on the new clues that could lead to John being absolved of all crimes. He wasn't stupid enough to believe that, though--hologram or no. Sherlock didn't care about John's future half as much as he cared about working out his own murder. He was selfish like that. So was John. But the inspector really should have paid him more mind.

Clearing his throat, John rolled his shoulders back and stared down at the floor, trying not to be too obvious as he engaged his present companion. "For what it's worth," he said, "I still agree with you."

Sherlock laughed with derisive cheer. "Mind blowing revelation--John Watson approves of a theory that makes him being a murderer unlikely."

"Ya know, the headline could also read ' _John Watson approves of a theory that doesn't revolve around the phrase 'we'll never know_ '" It wasn't worth it to argue over intention. John licked his lips, scooting back till his shoulders touched the wall as his feet dangled off the edge of his bed. "Think they're in on it? Some sort of cover up?"

"And sentence you to rehabilitation in this manner? Only an idiot would want me alive... _functional_... after killing me."

John nodded, his eyes tracking up Sherlock's legs to his still turned body and its observance of the wall. "Point taken. If they didn't know you were brilliant in the first place, they wouldn't have taken so many measures to make sure they outsmarted you. Or have felt they needed you dead at all."

The curls of his head bounced slightly as he shook in agreement. He didn't say anything further, though. Didn't press the conversation or expand upon any of the ideas they'd spoken of earlier. He just stood there. It occurred to John that not being able to storm out of the room left little options for retreat. Keeping his back turned was really the only option for solitude the man--no, hologram-had. It hadn't exactly been one of the things he'd bemoaned; Sherlock seemed quite alright with sharing space but begrudged his lack of formal inclusion. If John didn't know any better, he'd think the dead man depressed. Could computer code feel depressed? Was there a specific algorithm for despondency and sadness? It seemed silly to think it, but then John hadn't been remiss to consider the hologram capable of anger or irritation. He displayed both quite convincingly. It was far easier to accept a base level of projected negativity, though, than it was to imagine a self-awareness capable of despairing of itself.

Despite his best efforts, John did feel sympathy for it. It was a very good impersonation of a living man--too good, really. And he supposed, if he was honest, he rather preferred that to the alternative. He'd rather be stuck with an annoying but authentic human-likeness than a sycophantic machine. "Want to play a game?" he asked, hoping perhaps to coax him away from the wall and alleviate both their boredom now that their game of crime solving was at an end.

Sherlock just shook his head again, saying nothing. That was not normal. Sherlock never shut up, not even when John begged.  
"It finally hit you?"

"That I'm dead?" Sherlock looked over his shoulder at him, his eyes thin and rimmed in wrinkles. "Considering the fact that we've spent the better part of the day inspecting the photographic evidence, I'd say I've confronted the fact already."

Fair enough. John beat a bass line on his thighs in kinetic unease as he watched him, hoping for more, and seeing instead a return to wall-watching and silent contemplation. "Look, I'm sorry he ignored you like that."

"Well, why shouldn't he?" Sherlock said in a way that mocked the obvious. "I'm not real. I'm not alive. I'm just _emulating_. I'm just processing data as prescribed by my uploaded personality and knowledge parameters. I'm not actually frustrated, that's just what this particular arrangement of 1's and 0's comes out as. I don't feel anything, I don't think anything. You can just turn me off whenever you wish--why should I have a say in my own functionality? I'm not actually aware of myself in any real capacity. I'm not a person. I'm just computer code. And nothing I say, or think, or wish matters. So I may as well just stare at the wall for the rest of my run time, don't you think? At least that won't prove to be a waste of my time."

Nothing he said was untrue but John found himself wincing slightly all the same. So it had just hit him, them. Well, good luck with that. John really wasn't sure what he was supposed to do. Just let him stand there and process it? Try and make him feel better? This wasn't his forte. He didn't even really do his own emotions let alone divulge heavily in others'. He couldn't tell him he was overreacting--he was right about everything even if he sounded bitter as he said it. He wasn't a human being anymore and the sooner he accepted that... Nothing. There was nothing to gain in accepting it. He just wouldn't get his pretend feelings hurt. Somehow.

John was beginning to feel very manipulated by the rehabilitation program. They made him seem so real. Too real. Far too _real_ to not treat with the same humanity as any other man or women on their ship, deserving of every right to be heard and taken seriously. Deserving of a bed and a chair even if he couldn't use either. John licked his lips and swallowed thickly. He was going to be in way over his head if he didn't learn where to draw the line. Maybe part of that was helping Sherlock find it. Anything, really, to make living together tolerable. "What's it like?" he asked at length, trying to see if he could detect a flicker in Sherlock's form like light from a fluorescent bulb.

"Being a hologram?"

"Being dead."

Sherlock shrugged and turned around at last, arms not crossed so much as hugging his chest in a way that made him look young and small in ways the angular features and grown stature should not have allowed. "I don't know," he said, mouth thin and chin lengthened. "I don't feel dead. It's not normal for a person to be aware of every part of their body. We only become aware of our toes, our arms, our neck when we feel pain. Health is just a state of being where malady is a focusing factor. I don't feel pain so I just accept that my body is here. Breathing is an automatic function so I take for granted that I don't breath. Bodily process happen when they need to so the fact that I haven't eaten doesn't matter because I haven't felt hunger. It doesn't matter I haven't urinated because I haven't felt the need to. Why miss sleep when you don't feel tired? I don't even recognize I can't smell anything because it's only pleasant smells and odors that really bring the sense to life anyway. Touch is really the only thing that reminds me. Other than a basic sense of spacial awareness, I feel nothing. Not the clothes on my body, not my own hands, and certainly nothing I come in contact with--or rather that I don't. Standing perfectly still, I feel as alive today as I did weeks ago. But I don't even feel my own weight behind my steps. And it's... disconcerting. I don't remember dying. I don't remember when one state of being crossed over into the next. All I know is that I feel exactly the same as I used to. The person is in the mind, not the transport. I am thought and knowledge and memory, and never once has the limitations of being flesh and blood been the defining feature of myself." He paced as he approached the bed with an impassioned pinch between his brows. "Man understands that the mind can survive even while the body lays dying. Not breathing and possessing no heartbeat do not mean death, just the threat of death. And a body that supports a dead mind is accepted as dead for its failure to think and be beyond breathing and bleeding. So why am I considered dead? I'm the opposite of brain dead--I'm brain _alive_. I exist as an algorithm that perfectly replicates the functionality of my human mind. I am still me. If you called my brother and let me speak to him, he would not be able to tell the difference between me now and me as he knew me. I am the same. So why is this death? Why is this less than alive?"

John licked his lips again, his eyes caught in Sherlock's stare and unable to pull away. It made  
sense. Every time Sherlock spoke, it made sense. He was a master of logic but more than that was his creativity of thought and his ability to apply logic to unreasonable places. John had never met a man nor a machine like him. He was amazing. And he made John want to believe.

The laugh was feeble but it cracked a smile across his face anyway. He choked on it quickly, almost ashamed of it, which only made it rumble in his chest again and buzz against the lips he bit down to keep closed and thin.

Sherlock scowled, hands falling from his self-embrace to brace against his hips. "What?" he demanded with a tone that flirted with despair.

"Nothing. Just...," John cleared his throat of the laugh only for it to erupt from his belly again and pinch his cheeks with a grin. "It's just sort of ridiculous. They've got a hologram who doesn't accept that he's dead trying to help rehabilitate a man whom neither believe killed him."

Sherlock's brow quirked as his face remained stoic. "It's a little ridiculous, yeah," he said.

They were two men, neither of whom belonged together in a jail cell, neither of which could do anything about it. Justice at it's finest. They were both stuck for their own misguided good. It was stupid. It was demonstrably idiotic. And within seconds the hard draw of sadness pulled away and replaced a smile on Sherlock's face as he tried not to laugh as well. It wasn't funny. They were both fucked. It was hard to imagine things being any worse than they were and only fools laughed in the face of their own inescapable fate.

Sherlock was the first to embrace his foolishness. John didn't fall far behind. It was the laugh of insane men who were ignoring every reason to scream and stomp and rattle their cages. Life was simply too unreasonable and their lot too unacceptable. They had to laugh. It was laugh or die and even the dead among them preferred the levity of laughter. John wiped tears from his eyes as it went on, wondering if this was what madness felt like or just the feeling of letting it all go.  
The law said John killed Sherlock Holmes. As far as Sherlock was concerned, he hadn't. So maybe, just for the sake of reciprocity, it wouldn't be all bad for John to pretend Sherlock Holmes wasn't dead.

After all, when was the last time a computer program laughed at irony?


	6. Chapter 6

Sherlock was quieter that night. Maybe. Actually, John was pretty sure he wasn't any more or less obviously present than any of the other nights past but somehow it didn't bother him as much. Leaning against the wall in his standard beige uniform, Sherlock was obviously still irritated and in general annoyed with a lack of anything of interest to do, but there was something about him that stopped John short of being overwhelmed by him. He didn't make him feel claustrophobic or anxious as he took up space in the cell made for one. John was reminded of cramped barracks back on the Esperanza and the nights of sleep had while weak men prayed and strong men wept. The walls creaked as breaches in the outer hull threatened to tear them all apart should the pressure balance systems falter for even a moment under the stress of overclocked engines and unspecified damages. This wasn't war but it wasn't far off. John rather liked thinking of Sherlock as another soldier in the ranks more so than just the living shadow of a man brought to life for his sanity. Comrades in arms; brothers of the trenches. It was them against the world so to speak. Mutual opposition shouldn't have made him feel better, but it did.

Opposing Sherlock had been an exercise in futility doomed to fail over time and with much pointless repetition. John liked the way the other man thought. He liked that Sherlock was an unrepenting arsehole even--in as much as he was too if he cared for honesty. He could never stomach a sycophant nor someone contrary just to try and win at being the best person with the worst life that was always better than and yet somehow worse than everyone else's. Sherlock didn't delight in self-pity nor despair in the face of all good reason. John respected that. And he admired his mind. So into the fray, then, and never mind the details. Sherlock was much more interesting as a man than he ever could hope to be as computer code. And in the hours since he'd made the decision to forgo prescribed reason and to allow himself to see the man instead of the hologram, he hadn't found an excuse to regret it.

Quite the opposite. A computer that constantly beeped and blooped was an annoyance based on the simple idea that machines should run quietly unless engaged by manual input. A toaster didn't pop and click unless someone were to push the lever down and turn it on, nor did a vacuum shout unless activated. Sherlock going on and on as a machine made him something faulty and broken by conventional logic. As a man, he was just like John: trapped, bored, and hopelessly disillusioned towards all future prospects. Not being one for gadgets and machines anyway, John found it much easier to deal with Sherlock as a man. He was more interesting that way and far less distant and unfamiliar. Not that it excused all his annoying habits but he no longer made John uncomfortable simply through his existence alone.

He was bored, though. They both were. Even with the hours counting down through the natural sleep schedule, John couldn't shut his mind off and ignore the rush from the day. Most fun he'd had in a long while. Probably didn't speak well of him to admit that but to himself it was a safe acknowledgment. Sherlock had been right: getting charged with murder had been the first interesting thing to happen to John since he'd been discharged from the war. Fighting to understand what had happened intensified that. It was Christmas Eve and he was six years old, laying in bed, staring at the ceiling in anticipation for the morning. He wasn't exactly sure what he expected to find, but somehow knowing Sherlock was there gave him an allotted increase in expectation.

But what did he really know about him?

John frowned at the ceiling as he lay in his bed, arms crossed beneath his head as he waited to see if sleep would come without any lessening of his questioning thoughts. He knew Sherlock's name and his profession, both on Earth and on the ship, and he'd heard him mention once or twice that  
he had a brother. That was about it, really. Most of what he knew about Sherlock he'd learned from the trial with very little added to it from snippets of conversation. If they were going to be roommates, it was customary to try and get to know each other. Not necessarily to make friends but there might be something of value in learning more about each other that could help them makes further connections in their case. Surely it wasn't so strange to try and strike up a normal conversation under such pretenses. Awkward, perhaps, but not strange. He turned his head to see Sherlock staring out at nothing, his lips thin and eyes caught between the wrinkled scrunch of displeasure and the wide-eyed stare of quiet observation. He was thinking and quite lost in those thoughts. Still, John got the impression he really wouldn't mind a slight reprieve. Once John was asleep, all he'd have was his thoughts. He was even more a prisoner than John in that way.

"If you could get out of here, what would you do?" John asked, watching as Sherlock blinked away his own contemplations so his eyes could focus on John. It was always interesting to try and guess what color they'd settle on when they fell into focus. John guessed green but saw silver-grey on the back of gunmetal blue.

Sherlock considered him for a moment before offering a shrug and letting his gaze slip away. "Simple--find my killer."

"Long term goal," John said, pushing it aside as he sat up on his elbows. "I mean like... Who would you visit? What things would you want to do?"

"There is nothing else."

"You wouldn't visit friends? Girlfriend?"

Sherlock shrugged again, lips pulling into a slight frown as his brows raised to widen his eyes with exaggerated disinterest. "Not really my area," he said, not deeming it necessary to say much more on the subject as he crossed his arms over his chest.

It was an odd way to phrase 'no'. It wasn't even a distant relative of 'no'. It was much more akin to a different answer altogether which, on reflection, wasn't really that much of a surprise. "Oh. So you're, uh..."

"I'm what?" Sherlock asked, his left brow arching speculatively.

John cleared his throat and licked his lips. "...Single," he settled on after far too lengthy a pause.

Sherlock simply nodded, the ghost of a smile catching on his full lips. "Indefinitely so."

Well, that hadn't been awkward in the least. John was almost regretting attempting small talk if not for the rather charming look on the other man's face. He wasn't offended. He looked to be enjoying putting John on the spot, in fact. A little light teasing was fine. Holograms could do little else. John shook his head, trying not to give evidence of the rather terribly stereotyped prison scenario his mind had instinctively gone towards. Harry would be disappointed in him. Though, in his defense, she'd still probably smirk even while play-punching him.

He decided to simply play along, keep it light, and not try and backpedal his way into the 'it's all fine' explanation of how much he really didn't care about other people's life choices. "Right. Short list of prospects after death," he joked.

Sherlock's smile deepened, teeth showing through the gap of his lips. "Even before that. I'm sure you can imagine the general level of interest someone like me garners. Now that I can't even effectively be gagged, there's really not much of a point." He paused for only a moment, his face retracting into a small scowl as though caught in a lag behind his own words. "By which I mean I'm aware of my relative attractiveness and ability to repel any attention with a sentence. As I can't be engaged physically, only aurally, I have no further appeal."

John felt his forehead wrinkle as his face lengthened in curiosity. "Find yourself gagged often?"

Sherlock mocked dismay. "Down boy," he said, and gave a cautionary frown before the rise of another smirk.

John felt his neck and ears go instantly red. "No, I didn't--" Okay, gay. Definitely gay. Should have said something earlier. Not flirting. Not interested. Just making small talk. Jesus Christ; abandon ship. "I just meant.. Actually, no. None of my business. Don't know why I asked."

Sherlock all but laughed at him, his smile steady as his eyes sharpened back into blue. "Because you're bored and conversations about sex are universally found interesting by nearly all human beings."

That wasn't too terribly far from true. Most conversations in the barracks had been about conquests of all types, be they on the field of battle or the bed. John had more than half a mind to ignore the topic altogether but curiosity would someday get the better of him anyway so what better time than the present to regret ever asking? "Well, if you want to draw on the human nature defense. So. Gags?"

"Virgin," he answered, though the question he responded to was the distant assumption that put the object into context to begin with.

John felt his skin burn with a further flush of humiliation. Oh. That sort of 'not my area'. Thank Christ he hadn't given him the ' _it's all fine_ ' speech. "Shit. Wow. I wouldn't have, uh.. Huh. Sorry."

"I'm not." Sherlock shrugged and let his smile fall from playful to simple pleasantness. Despite his admissions, he seemed quite capable of being amiable. "I don't go in for that sort of thing," he said. "People. Relationships. Rather like you, I suppose, though I think you've quite the string of lovers in your past given your confidence in the subject."

John pursed his lips, still floundering. "I'm sorry, what?"

"Friends. Girlfriends. You don't have any."

"Why do you say that?" John asked. He sat up further, scooting until his back tapped against the white panels, trapping his pillow between wall and tailbone.

"Because no one's visited you."

"Fair enough." John breathed in deep and let the heat under his skin seep out through his breath, grasping at control under the observations of his companion. Of course, Sherlock was right; he was always right it seemed. John had no one. He was unattached. Just like him. Only, in certain respect, quite different. "My last girlfriend left me while we were stopped off at Ganymede. And all my mates are still in the service," he explained, watching as Sherlock nodded along, gaps filled with details where deductions left blanks.

Sherlock's fingers tapped along the sides of his elbows as he continued to stand sentry. "You haven't developed any relationships with the crew despite it being several months into the term. You just want to do your job and be left alone. Admirable, in a way. But your laugh-lines say that's a rather new development."

Again John nodded. It was interesting how talking to Sherlock could be more like listening to one's biography than being questioned in conversation. It was still easy to read into the lingering questions, though. Sherlock told one what he knew and waited to receive the information he lacked. It was still a give and take but of a strangely condensed fashion that weeded out the unnecessary and brought up the uniquely different. It was succinct. John kind of liked it. "I liked the space corps," he said, without any qualms against admitting the truth to someone who found him, in many ways, transparent. "I liked war. Never a dull day when people are getting blown up and tired engines are fighting against gravitational pulls to keep in orbit while dodging debris. I don't really care much for this civilian stuff. It's why Sarah left me. I'm too... restless."

"Despondent," Sherlock offered as a replacement.

John scowled. "That's a bit closer to the word she used, yeah."

Sherlock did not smile but he nodded with reasonable gravity. "Do you have any enemies?" he asked.

"No. Why?"

"Successful people who are seen as aloof are often considered narcissistic. Co-workers consider the distance to be a sign of imagined superiority and a dismissal of others. Considering the fact that the drugs were likely taken from the medical bay and that almost all evidence that points to your guilt comes from your profession, the person who framed you is likely a co-worker who would have something to gain in you taking the blame--either professionally or as a means of revenge."

John gave pause as his mind swung back towards the case as Sherlock's seemed to have done, having wound a conversation into work. "Right. Uh.. no enemies I can think of."

"Where does Sarah work?"

John didn't like where this particular line of questioning was going any more than he did the answers he knew he must supply. "The medical bay," he said, swallowing on the empty admission. "She's a doctor. GP. I'd say a murder charge is a bit much in the revenge world for being a bad boyfriend, though."

Sherlock shrugged. "You never know how these things fester. Still, it's safe to assume there is a link between someone you know and work with, and my murderer."

"Why do you think it's more than one person involved?"

"Because you don't make sense," Sherlock announced. With simple gestures, he offered more in explanation, pacing soundlessly as he demonstrated the extent of his consideration. "When you consider all the details that went into setting up my murder, it seems very sloppy indeed to try and pin it on a man with no connection to me or the murder scene other than blood which could have been transferred via a blood-soaked cloth. It's circumstantial evidence, really, and too easily discounted with a mind open to do so. So there was an accomplice. You were their idea, not my murderers. Which, luckily, means we might have a very pissed off psychopath on our hands who doesn't much appreciate a free thinker. After all, my unsolved murder would leave them without a reason to activate a hologram of me. But because you were convicted, I'm here."

And _snap_ went another piece of the puzzle. John smiled despite himself. "His best bet was an unsolved murder if he meant to keep you out of things," he recounted, proving he was following along even if the repetition did little to further the conversation.

Sherlock smiled knowingly all the same. "What do you imagine happens to people who piss off a murderer?"

"They get killed."

"Yes. But two murders on one ship in one month?" His tone and skeptical frown said the answer was far less straight forward. He settled back against the wall, hands folding along his narrow hips heroically. "Next time we stop, someone who works in the medical bay is going to go missing. They will be presumed to have walked off the job and to still be on the moon, station or planet we left. They will in fact be on this ship still, murdered, and the body will be disposed of innocuously through the trash, perhaps in pieces."

John nodded, listening, following. If they could warn Lestrade about the potential missing person before the event happened, it might help give their story some creditability. There were a few nagging concerns, though. "That's that loose end taking care of. But what about you?"

"I'm already dead. Which means the only way to get me deactivated is to target you." He didn't seem too worried about that fact, or be in the least bit concerned. His face said it was no big deal even as his words illustrated how much of a deal it might be. "They'd need it to look like suicide so it's safe to assume your food won't be laced with poison. Doesn't mean there won't be any mind-altering substances in it, though. So my advice is to simply not commit suicide."

John took pause again and slouched back down to his bed, his frown deepening with every few inches until the wrinkles of his face matched the wrinkled state of his pillow. "Right. Thanks," he said, not comforted by his advise in the slightest. He wasn't entirely disappointed to hear the news either, though. Let them come. He was keen for a fight. And it would certainly keep things interesting. While not his job, Sherlock was very good at instilling danger into the monotony of even life locked up in a cell. "Don't take this the wrong way," John said, fixing his blankets back over himself. "But.. uh... when you're not the worlds most annoying git, you're actually pretty amazing."

The hologram smiled vaguely, looking down at the floor. "Well. That's not what most people say."

"I can imagine. They spoke too soon, though."

"Mm.... Thank you," he said, his cheeks once again ripening like fruit on the vine as the hours of sleepless night continued to travel on.


	7. Chapter 7

John was reminded of their words from days before as the hologram transmitter switched off outside the counseling chamber: what would make a man be still and calmly accept his fate? Sherlock seemed anxious and quieted in discontent as the foreseeable termination loomed ahead and then... gone. Nothing he could have done anyway. Sherlock could only move in relation to where John moved and there was no method by which he could interact to stall the field dampeners that triggered his shutdown. The only thing he could do was follow and watch the field approach them as he might have done his murderer and the knife. It made John feel sick to think about it. Sherlock was not a passive figure; he was assertive--aggressive even--and strong-willed. The way he acted when cornered and faced with the inescapable gave far too much insight to the night neither of them remembered. Sherlock resented it but he did not put up a fight for show against either the immovable object nor the unstoppable force. John could see it in the way his eyes clamped closed as his signal broke and terminated. They were killing him again, over and over again, with every flip of that figurative switch.

"I hear you spoke to Lestrade," Ella said, as unremembered pleasantries fell to the background as talking points John didn't need to be mentally present to exchange. They were both fine even if they weren't fine and things were good even if they were awful. The first few minutes were innocuous and bland, the pretense of a friendly encounter before scratching at the psyche like a biopsy performed under local anesthesia. It has to hurt if it's to heal. Tell that to the hologram with its cold, exsanguinated corpse.

John licked his lips, trying to disregard the eggshell feeling in his stomach that was cold, sour, and uncomfortable. He just needed to get that image out of his head. He needed to forget the way Sherlock looked when he let his program shut down and dispel the image of the knife that at one point had been there instead. This wasn't about the murder--not to that extent. Though he was thankful she wanted to talk about the fact he'd been looking into his own case with some results. "Mm," he hummed, swallowing once more before words would follow. "Told him everything Sherlock had worked out. He wasn't convinced. I think Sherlock's on to something with the whole missing persons thing, though. If we call it before it happens, I think he'll start to take Sherlock more seriously. Maybe be willing to help us out on investigating the other bits."

"You're a soldier and a medical doctor, John. Not a detective."

John nodded slightly, lips pursed. "No, Sherlock's the detective. And I can't even begin to describe how brilliant he is at it. And it just looks so easy for him."

Ella clasped her hands against the top knee of her crossed legs, the paisley patterns of her skirt striking in brown and turquoise. "He's a computer, John," she said, as though speaking to a child, simply worded and without condescension. "Processing speeds are generally faster."

"No, I fought Simulants in the war; I know how code-minds function." John's insistence followed through with his own posture as he bent forward, no longer in repose. Despite his legs being short, both heels were planted firmly on the floor. This was not a topic she wanted to debate him on. Not when something about the way Sherlock had looked had left his nerves feeling unguarded and raw. "Fighting them's like playing the computer in chess. A computer's always going to make the most logical move. They don't ever think about knocking the board over, kicking the pieces aside, and just having it out bare fisted. Not unless they've seen it before. They learn but they're not creative. What Sherlock does... no machine could do that. Every one of us would be out of a job if they could."

"You're very fond of him," Ella remarked, not having moved so much as an eyelash as she drank him in with observation.

John scoffed, breathing out through his nose, as he smiled thinly in response. "I wouldn't say 'fond' but it's been a good couple days," he clarified, still leaning forward, elbows hard into the meat of his thighs.

"What do you think of when you see him?"

"Nothing especially."

"Do you feel remorse at his death?"

"Not remorse." John shrugged, raising his palms to run them down his face. "Sometimes I think it's a shame he died but he's still there so... he's not really. I mean, the world didn't lose him. It's just ignoring him right now which is a stupid mistake."

"Where is Sherlock right now?" Ella asked him. And she knew; of course she knew. Building up to a point. Intent on proving something.

John scowled but played along, the threat of medication always lingering in the air should he prove less than cooperative in their little sessions. "He's turned off," he said.

"People can't just be turned off, John."

John shrugged. "People sleep."

"People can also still exist when not in observation." Ella's frown was carefully expressed, walking the line between disappointment and resentful acceptance with a vacancy of any real emotion. It was obvious she didn't care one way or another but the ambivalent expression was meant to pull on John's own interpretation. And it did. God help him, it did. He didn't like mind games, he didn't like guessing or pulling at straws. She didn't care about holograms, she only cared to understand how John felt.

And really, she could have just fucking asked.

"And why can't he, exactly? I know you don't make the rules but why can't they get him a self-propulsion light beam? Or get us a two-person cell? Why does he have to be turned off at all just because I'm in here with you? I mean, it's like you all think it's no big deal but I'm practically escorting him to the hangman. You turn him off but there is never any real guarantee he'll be turned back on. That's not okay."

Ella nodded, unphased even as he rose his voice. She unclasped her fingers from around her knee and set her feet parallel, the cork heels hollow on the metal flooring. "These fears you attribute to him, this longing and lingering suffering, that's really just an expression of your own guilt, John," she explained, dark brown eyes centered on him, drawing him in, and offering reason without judgment. "You did this to him. You killed him. And the anxiety you feel towards your inability to control what happens to him is a manifest of your desire to have power over others. You had the power of life and death over him and you used it. But you cannot exert that power any longer."

John's jaw felt loose as his bottom lip fell open, his mind reeling in cold as he shook his head, eyes crinkled and nearly shut. " _Jesus Christ_ , I'm not--"

"You barter, John. You take situations outside your ability to enforce and manipulate them to try and exert some small amount of control. Name one thing you haven't tried to change in just this first week."

John bit his lips to keep them shut, his mind supplying all too readily the short list of things he'd challenged. His verdict, need for medication, the place of holograms. Everything he did, he did grudgingly and only after attempting to adjust things as he preferred. It didn't exactly corroborate a contrary story. "I'm not... I'm not like that," he stated, annoyed at the way the words caught in his throat.

Ella remained calm and still, exerting her presence with ease. "You're a captain; you're used to giving orders. A doctor's no different. Both professions give you power over life and death. You have surrounded yourself with the illusion of control and the ability to exert it. And even here in prison, you are still fighting to take command."

"I did not kill Sherlock Holmes," John ground out through his teeth, hands clenching once again against the arms of his chair. "I know that now. He and I both do. And if trying to improve what is left for him in life is me trying to take command, then fine. Because someone has to."

"You look for battles where there are none," she said, almost looking sad as she watched him brace himself against her words.

John let his hackles fall though his muscles remained tense. "Or maybe I've just got a better eye for a fight than most people."

"Just a few days ago Sherlock was an annoyance to you. You sympathized more with his killer than with him, you said. Quite the turn around after just a few days."

"I'm a doctor. I know everything you could possibly tell me about what counts as life. And I challenge anyone to speak to him, be around him for just a few days, and not realize we have quite possibly made a huge mistake." John let his head fall, hands raking through his short hair. It was like he could feel her inside there, jumbling around in the mess of thoughts that had once been organized and neat. He wasn't going to let her make him second guess himself. What he knew, he knew. What he felt was real. Maybe he couldn't convince her but he was damn sure he wasn't going to let himself be convinced either. He rose his chin and licked his lips, pressing the moistened skin together as he breathed in through his nose. "If I am trying to take control of the situation it is because no one has proven to me that they are capable of doing so better. I promise you, I did try to see him as a machine but I can't hold on to ideas regardless of the truth presented to me. Everything I have ever been taught has told me to go with my gut and keep an open mind because those are the two things our enemy cannot do. Sherlock is not a machine. I get that he's not alive either but all I'm saying is that maybe things aren't quite so black and white."

Ella nodded gently and for a moment John thought perhaps he'd gotten to her and presented his thoughts in a way that spoke to her in the absence of her own experiences. But her black hole eyes continued to pull at him rather than concede to let him go. She smiled kindly but with no real investment in the affection shown. "You're still talking about yourself, John. Yourself, the verdict, and your inability to accept that you've killed someone. You are projecting all those fears and doubts--"

John bleated with a laugh, leaning back in his chair as his eyes rolled to the ceiling. "Great. Fucking great. _I'm_ projecting and _he's_ emulating. Match made in fucking heaven."

"John. Please calm down."

Calm? He was calm. He was so calm that there were physicists out there trying to quantify his state of calmness as it pertained to several of Newton's laws. He was a paradigm of calm. He was the patron saint of calm. He was the neo-Dalai Lama of inner peace and serenity, renowned the universe over for his patience and--above all--calm. If distilled, his calm could quiet the winds on Jupiter and disrupt the tumultuous boil of gas within their sun. And then sink there entire galaxy into a cold, icy death that supported nothing and no one but that was--by all accounts-- _calm_.

Hysterics would get him on medication, though. Supporting the idea that this was all ridiculous was going to get him zombified on suppressants and put under further psyche evaluation. They might not turn Sherlock back on. He breathed deep, pulling his mocking smile into duck lips as he swallowed contention in support of lesser restrictions. Ella was there to help but only under the pretense that the courts had been right. He was just going to have to get used to her believing he was a monster or at least possessed the inclination to behave like one.

She waited for him to rejoin her, all too aware that the conversations he had in his head were far from echoes of their own points of speech. "I want you to think about what I've said. Right now you're just reacting, you're not thinking, and you're not hearing yourself the way I am. I want you to remember what we've talked about and to really give it some serious consideration."

John nodded, hiding his disgust, the echo of sickness boiling in his gut like rotting greens. "Right."

"Okay." Ella granted him another smile as peace offering, too knowing and too strangely vacant to not send shivers down John's spine. "You're doing well, John. I promise. This program can be very cerebral and difficult to adjust to. But I think there is a lot of promise in the way you're currently connecting with your hologram. You are meant to feel this way, John. It is normal. And I think we have a lot to look forward to when your time here is up."

The sickness in him rolled through his veins as his jaw clenched, molars grinding to keep back the bite of words he'd regret if only later. This was normal. They'd heard this before. They knew and still they did not hesitate to simply turn them off.

And they called him a murderer.


	8. Chapter 8

John could sleep through almost anything. Part of having a sister was learning to ignore the sound of a blow dryer in the morning and though the perpetual bags under his eyes would testify otherwise, he'd become very good indeed at not startling with sudden noises so long as he was trained to recognize them as non-threatening. Shouting still woke him. Sirens woke him. Footsteps and voices rarely did unless circumstances suggested they should. In that respect, there really was no reason for the sound of Sherlock humming to register as curious enough to draw John out of a restful sleep. But it did, and with his eyes only slightly peeking open, he quietly observed what he knew he was not meant to see as he lay in his bed in the dark corner of his cell. Sherlock was not only humming, he was dancing, with a partner fittingly made of empty air as he was composed of much the same.

John kept quiet as he watched him through a squint, not wanting him to turn and catch the white of his eyes in the shadows. He tried to keep his breath as even as it had been, perpetuating the facade of sleep as he tried to place the hushed melody. He couldn't. He'd never heard it before. It sounded ancient and fit the somewhat stilted movements of its creator as Sherlock stepped forward, then back, shifting with a turn as he rocked through different positions, one arm cupping an invisible waist while the other pretended to gently cradle a hand. He looked out of place in his uniform as he spun in careful circles. He carried himself regally, though. His face, when shown, smiled faintly at the invisible.

It was hard to decide what part was most interesting. Sherlock's voice was nice, even when only humming, and the tentative, weak wavering on the higher notes was charming. It was a little like watching a child at play and getting to look into the world of their imagination. Sherlock could not touch anything and had nothing at all to occupy himself with while John slept. So he'd turned to music and dance, making frivolity in the shadow hours to delight in alone, making songs where there were none and setting his body, such as it was, to move in elegance for not but his own pleasure. It was very human and somehow still very clever coming from him. John had seen Sherlock staring off into space so often he had assumed the man stayed very much the same when no one was watching him. Obviously, he'd been wrong. Sherlock was sound, so he made music. Sherlock had no audience, so he danced to that which he made. Setting his eyes to close once more, and letting the unknown song press his consciousness back into sleep, John could not help but smile slightly under the guarded hem of his blanket at the secret he felt inclined to keep of the hologram's nighttime affairs.

John dreamed of scenes from dated films where the music played and people danced as they spent the night in revelry.

In the morning it was all he could do not to whistle the tune that had sounded in his mind through waking and sleep. Sherlock was seated on the floor again, eyes closed in mimicry as he normally was as John rolled out of the bed, lips pursed against the impulse to continue to fill the silence. The hologram did not stir as he did. It was something of an unspoken arrangement that he keep to himself for the fist hour or so. Still John tred lightly as he crossed to the vacant en suite, feet chilled against the metal floors. There was no door and the room looked out on the rest with only a transparent wall to keep the shower water contained. Privacy was hardly in the plan when the cells had been devised by the architect. Small and purposeful; no places to hide. The economy of it was almost nice in a way. John appreciated efficiency. Were it not for Sherlock, John wouldn't really have any complaints. As it was, the hologram was kind enough to pretend to sleep while John relieved himself and set the water in the shower to heat as he stripped down to nothing, clothes left piled on the floor.

By the time he stepped under the spray, it was several degrees too hot but he didn't bother to adjust it. He'd acclimate. He liked the scald on his skin in the early morning and let the water beat against the base of his neck as he waited for the sensitivity of his scalp to permit the scald there as well. Chin down, he watched the water swirl around the drain between his feet, feeling it circle through his arches. He much preferred a bath, getting to soak his whole body in heat without the worry it would run cold before he was ready to rinse his hair. Bath water went tepid, not icy. A man was more likely to drown himself in a bath than in a shower, though. It was hardly the worst thing he'd had to adjust to in his new living arrangements. So he took showers now. That was fine. So long as he could still turn his flesh maroon before the tank cut him off, it was still something of a luxury compared to the times he'd spent in war.

"John?"

John felt his eyes bulge slightly at the sound of his name. With the voice emanating from the hydrophobic collar around his neck, it sounded as though Sherlock were in the shower stall with him. It made his skin feel tight and neck muscles cramp even against the heated jets of water beating against them. He looked through the clear divider at where the hologram stood looking at John as he pretended to lean against the empty door frame. John scowled. "Whatever it is, it can wait," he said, jaw tight as he grabbed for the soap.

"I promise you it can't." Sherlock did not move, his arms crossed over his chest as he failed to avert his gaze. He held steady to John's instead. "Describe it for me," he said, nodding his chin in a gesture up. "Your shower."

John frowned. "Describe my _shower_?" he repeated, more in hopes it might sound appropriately ridiculous to Sherlock once heard from someone else's lips than to clarify.

Sherlock didn't seem to notice. He walked further into the tiny room, two steps putting him right at the divider and far too close for comfort. His eyes only traveled from John's eyes to the water pouring down on him, his unscanning vision the only courtesy he seemed still inclined to keep to. "I never paid attention," he admitted with a slight pout to his full lips. "I don't remember the actual details. I haven't bathed in a week and even if I don't feel disgusting, I _feel_ disgusting. I want a shower."

"You're going to have to learn to get over that."

The hologram scowled. "You're in there right now. It's hardly an inconvenience to describe the sensation."

"You do realize that that is an extremely odd request, right?" John put the soap back in its cradle, not really inclined to rub himself down in suds while under the continued scrutiny of his roommate. He'd been naked in front of other blokes numerous times but none of them tended to stand right outside the shower and stare at him. He found himself almost hoping Sherlock would let his eyes slip and look at the rest of him. It would give him the high ground he was lacking in handling strange but harmless requests. Much easier to deny him if the other man was a pervert.

As it was, Sherlock was simply helpless. There were many things about the human experience he simply could not have ever again. His face remained closed off against any hint of vulnerability though everything about his request put him solely at the mercy of John's kindness. "I don't care if it's odd," he said, closing off even further as his eyes turned to ice. "I'd like a shower, please."

Part of John recoiled at the fact such circumstances existed to make another man practically beg him for something so mundane. He didn't care to think of himself as owning Sherlock though in certain respects he did. Sherlock had been given to him without his consenting to the arrangement. Consent was a human right, after all. Sherlock didn't qualify. He wasn't allowed anything that John didn't somehow arrange for. Except for his own songs and his own steps to the music. Those were his alone and John had seen and heard him. And, dear god, he was going to describe his shower to him to make up for sharing in that small haven of humanity that hadn't been his to witness.

John rubbed at his face, his moist palms running down his cheeks with little friction. "Fine. But I'm a doctor, not a writer. So don't expect much."

Sherlock's eyes warmed immediately, his pout spreading into a victorious smile. "Excellent," he said, and stood closer still to the divider between them.

John made himself look away, scowling at the wall opposite as his expectations for the rest of the day fell to nothing but awkwardness and quiet. "Okay, so..., well, it's... wet. And... hot. There are lots of small jets--"

"Stop," Sherlock commanded, his voice belaying irritation even before John had turned his face back to frown at him. "Don't describe it as you think it should be described. Don't think about what it is--I know what it is--just describe the feeling. Close your eyes if you have to."

Closing his eyes in the shower wasn't high on John's list of comfortable situations. In general, he liked to have his eyes open when nude with very few and distinct exceptions. Nudity was often vulnerability--a fact that the two of them had been over, in fact. And he'd seen enough horror movies to know that he never wanted to be the idiot who got so involved in hygiene that he didn't notice the killer approach. He was locked in a cell, however. And Sherlock was almost a second set of eyes for him now. So despite the gut-responsive dread at standing naked and wet in the dark of his own making, John slowly closed his eyes and tried to do as Sherlock asked, pretending the rest of the situation was separate from himself as the hot water splashed and ran over him.

It was still wet. Still hot. He could still feel the beating water. He wasn't sure what more Sherlock wanted from him. That was what a shower felt like. He sighed and breathed in on the steam, letting his muscles relax as well as they wished to under the circumstances. The beating water helped. It was a cheap little massage of nearly perfectly applied pressure. Pressure. Not what it was but what it felt like. John smiled slightly to himself, hoping the expression was hidden in his sigh. Most people must have seemed very stupid to Sherlock. Himself included. John kept his eyes closed and licked his lips as he concentrated and let himself forget how mundane the experience was, making himself blind in memory as well to focus only on what it would be like it he didn't know what it was to begin with. "It's.... It's heavy. Pushing. Like a weight constantly pressed against my back. It feels like one big solid force only... only it's..It seems continuous but if I concentrate on it, it... flutters. But even then, it's.. indistinguishable. It's still always pushing."

"What does it feel like to be wet?" Sherlock asked, and John reminded himself that the voice that came from his collar did not place someone there with him in the dark.

Wet? Wet was... "Soft. Soft and hot. Like wearing several silk dressing gowns at once. I don't feel it running down my skin so much as I feel the colder air that blows against it if I get too far out of the stream. It's the same temperature as me so it's almost like it's a part of me being pulled away. I can feel it pull towards my toes, dripping off my knees. It pushes against my back but it pulls itself down my chest, stomach, and legs. My neck, shoulders and back are numb to the pulling because they're being beaten against instead. I don't feel it at all until the water rolls off the backs of my knees."

"And soap?"

John opened his eyes to find the bar again in its cradle, leaning forward to pick it back up. It wasn't his hand, though. His naked arm joined together with a beige outfitted one at the wrist, the pulsing emission of a lightform enclosed over his own hand with the almost transparent specter of a different, larger one. Sherlock was in the shower with him. Sherlock was half phased through him, occupying the same space as well one could with such height disparity. John curled his fingers into a fist within the open palm of the fake one.

"Get out."

"John--"

"No," he shook his head, grabbing the soap with as much defiance as one could. "You need to not be in here. Get out."

Sherlock seemed to wait only a moment before sliding through the divider and taking up his spot on the other side once more.

John shook his head again and pointed. "No. _Out_. There is no reason for you to be in here."

"Oh, for god's sake, what harm can I possibly do?" the hologram demanded, irritated and defensive though he stormed out of the room as told, leaving John to finish his morning routine without further participation.


	9. Chapter 9

John found Sherlock sitting on the floor again, head to his knees with the flop of thick curls obscuring his face. Sulking. His attempts at tantrums when they'd first turned him on had been a lesson in futility and proof that bad things could get worse when mounted in frustration. His concession to simply stare defiantly at the wall instead hadn't worked much to his benefit either. Aside from screaming, there wasn't much else he could do and John felt, while looking down at him, that things were getting out of hand in the uncertain struggle of dealing with holograms. For both of them. Whether Sherlock knew it or not, they were at a crossroads. In actual fact, they'd chosen their direction days ago, though perhaps it was more apt to say they were just lost in the dark.

Changed into replacement fatigues with a towel over his shoulders, John rubbed the moisture from his hair and stared at his companion, waiting to see if he'd look up on his own. He did not. Could be avoidance. Could be stubbornness. Could be depression. Whatever the reason for his not wishing to confront John now, John wasn't going to wait around forever for an apology or some kind of sign Sherlock understood why he'd been wrong. Something needed to be said, though. Something had to be done to set a precedent for the future. One had to invent fire first before they could make a torch.

"Your turn," John announced, pausing to watch Sherlock raise his head, looking for the glint of silver-grey in his eyes as he straightened from his slouch. John gestured with his chin towards the room behind where the shower water still echoed from the stall. "Water's on. Hurry up."

Sherlock didn't move at all at first, gauging John with hard-set eyes until he finally pushed himself up to stand. His heavy brows put his eyes in shadow as he peeked around towards the en suite with uncertainty. "Why?" he asked, though the single question alluded to many.

John shrugged his face, holding his towel like a yolk around his neck. "You're a person, yeah? So let's not complicate that. You want a shower, you take your own shower, not one with me. Okay?"

The hologram nodded, expression still erring on the side of caution as he walked slowly towards the room, suspicion in his every movement despite the truth of the rumbling sound of water splashing to the floor. It was an almost feline mode of approach, graceful and purposeful but seemingly waiting for the scare. There was no trick. John had better things to be getting on with. He didn't even wait and watch to see if Sherlock indulged in a bit more make-believe before sitting down on his bed and hunting for a pair of socks, granting privacy with his back to the open door as he crossed his legs to dress his right foot. "One more thing," he paused to mention, not needing to raise his voice as the collar was really what he was conversing with. "The soap's slippery until you rub it between your palms. Then it's light but it grips and only slides against itself. Smells like clean laundry--not really a specific smell at all, just sort of clean. But it leaves a film and makes the skin feel less liquid. You can actually feel the difference between water and skin then. It's not entirely comfortable but it doesn't last."

There was a lengthy pause to the end of which John stopped expecting anything in reply. He set about pulling on his left sock as well, plotting the next move, only to smile softly to the murmured ' _Thank you_ ' that whispered itself from the metal around his throat. He didn't bother telling him he was welcome. Wasted breath. He'd be encroaching on the fantasy to speak now, anyway, and to that end, he kept as quiet as possible to let the pounding of the raining water drown out reality for a few minutes at least.

He laid on the bed and watched the wall as Sherlock so often did though in his mind he could see Sherlock standing there with the water running through him, eyes closed as he pretended he could feel what John had described. It being Sherlock, John wouldn't doubt that maybe, on some level, he could. He hadn't described the weight of wet hair or the sensation of fingers flopping through soaked locks. Sherlock's hair had been much longer than his, though. Probably felt different. Probably could get his fingers caught in the curls on a good shampoo whereas John's hands rubbed against his scalp in the same motion, hair like toothbrush bristles in the way it flicked soap and water if he let it. Sherlock could probably be blinded in a black curtain of fringe and watch the pattern of water through the maze of weighted curls much like the streams through the webbing of John's hands. It wasn't normally a level of detail John was used to thinking in but he liked it. In his cell with nothing of interest, it was interesting to see things with all his senses--recreate the known world in words and thoughts that described it but were separate from it. Even the white wall he stared at was in some ways interesting when instead he focused on what he wasn't seeing and what he was actively trying not to watch. Creepy as it sounded outside the context of further exercise, John could see Sherlock showering when he watched the white panel wall. It made his cell seem all the larger when everything in it was a novel's worth of experiences he never paid enough attention to catalog.

John heard the other man clear his throat and took it as an opening to turn and look. Sherlock was out of the bathroom, slightly flushed as though straight out of the hot water though John had used it all. John tried not to smile at the notion that Sherlock was more self-conscious about taking a shower alone than in sharing John's. Without comment, though, he stood and headed into the room behind him and shut the water off at last.

"Why did you do that?" Sherlock asked, and John stopped himself short of being a smart arse. But he was in a good mood. Ella was, perhaps, a little right: John did enjoy a bit of power in his life. But power didn't always imply usage for imposition.

Still, he smiled as he shrugged, the small smirk feeling foreign but not forced as he crossed the few steps back towards the center of the cell. "I told you," he said, attempting nonchalance.

Sherlock's eyes narrowed again, that feline temperament springing back to mind. "I thought I was just a machine."

"Honestly, I don't think you've ever been 'just' anything." John slipped his hands into his trouser pockets, rocking back on his heels as he searched for something steady and unflinching to hold on to in light of where he planned to go. He'd done quite a bit of thinking over the past few days and the shower certainly hadn't been the first time he'd felt aware of certain things. His gut instinct told him Sherlock was every bit as human as John was. In the end, he'd rather be proven wrong and have erred on the side of good intentions than look back and see himself the way he saw people like Ella and Lestrade now. "Look, uh... Everything I've ever heard about holograms says you're human-like but not human. And I have no idea if you're somehow special or if everyone's just as much of a moron as you seem to think they are but uh... in this room, you and me, we're the same. Yeah?"

Sherlock's eyes were sapphire dusted in moss. "And outside this room?"

It wasn't worth it to lie. Not to Sherlock. "Outside I'm going to say whatever I have to to make sure I get out of this okay."

Surprisingly, Sherlock grinned wickedly at his admission of selfishness, a brightness coming over him that had been lacking for days. "Good," he said, and seemed to grow several inches as he crossed closer to John with an empowerment the prisoner had forgotten to miss. "Looking out for yourself benefits me much more than some misguided sense of moral superiority. If we're going to be partners, we're going to have to coordinate our efforts on all fronts."

John nodded, feeling the echo of that rush again from past conversations that seemed to be a part of gaining Sherlock's approval and trust. "Agreed. Which means for now, we lay low. I need to work on getting a reputation that isn't for being stubborn and uncooperative."

"Mm," the hologram hummed, the description certainly not falling into his forte though other items certainly did. "Not much to do anyway until the killer strikes and proves my hypothesis correct in the case of the missing medical practitioner. Could be weeks. Never paid attention to the schedule of arrivals. Next stop?"

"We were set for Titan. So... Yeah, another two weeks or so."

"Well, with any luck I'll still be sane by then," Sherlock chimed playfully.

John scratched at the back of his neck with a nod. "That was sort of my point. We need to keep each other sane. We're in this together. And either we both spend our time miserable--"

"Or we both endeavor to breathe some levity into our shared situation," Sherlock surmised, completing John's thoughts quite succinctly. His smile grew warmer, less animated, as he ran his teeth over his bottom lip with an anxious hesitation. Something else won out in the end. "I enjoy board games," he said. "Anything chance based that doesn't require your ignorance to my game pieces or cards would be feasible."

It was a bit more childish a thing than John normally went in for, but he couldn't help the curious smile that remained on his face. "Nothing springs to mind but if they let us out to view the library, we can see what's up for grabs. Not that it helps you at night," he said as an afterthought, thinking back to the dance and the song he wasn't meant to see.

Sherlock's face shrugged with indifference, his arms flapping at his sides. "No. But it's something to look forward to in the day," he said, admitting to perhaps more than just the boredom that John knew plagued him.

Plagued them both, to be perfectly honest.

But not anymore.


	10. Chapter 10

Sherlock was far better at reading out loud than John was. It wasn't so much that the words were difficult or the sentences long and trailing but words sometimes became other words, some words got lost, and others popped across his tongue which weren't there at all in between. It had taken all of one page for Sherlock to bully his voice over John's, pushing aside the recitation of his tenor for the eloquent annunciation of his ripened baritone. John didn't argue or call attention to the change. He followed along the pages of their book with his eyes and flipped to the next when Sherlock reached the end to continue the story they shared.

It had fast become John's favorite way to spend the afternoon.

Sitting with their backs to the wall and legs stretched out across the narrow end of the bed, they seemed like age-old friends relaxing in the quiet comforts of John's bedroom, regaled by ancient forms of entertainment. Sherlock's spacial awareness let him project perfectly on the bed as though he really were there with only the unruffled sheets to prove otherwise. It would have been a bit romantic if not born from necessity. They had to sit close to share the book. Reading out loud meant they didn't have to wait for the other to catch up or ask at the end of every page 'are you finished?'. They'd tried it the other way. It had been frustrating and dull. Now John simply had to try and stay awake and not lull off to the calming sound of Sherlock's pleasant words after hours spent in worlds far away in further flights of fantasy and imagination where John was no longer a prisoner and Sherlock was once again alive.

Sherlock cleared his throat again as John failed to pay attention and let the sentence hang in the middle with the page yet unturned. "You're not listening," he said, a warning tone of annoyance edging across his voice.

John rolled his shoulders, letting out a yawn. "I am. Sort of. They're still just talking to that guy, yeah?"

" _That guy_ is the prime suspect."

"Oh." John scratched at the back of his neck and let his eyes skim the page to see if there were any bits of action that seemed important. Just lots of talking. "Well, if it's important, I'm sure you'll remind me of it later."

Sherlock rolled his eyes but let it go as John finally turned the page. Besides, John was right. Sherlock had done it enough on the previous books that it was a fair assumption the hologram would keep John informed on what he missed if he failed to follow all the way through to the grand reveal or conclusion. He was excellent at summaries. John almost enjoyed them more. Still, he tried to pay attention even as the mid-day cry for a nap rested heavy on his head like a drawn shade over his more restless mind. He would have liked to have fallen asleep listening to Sherlock read, but alas the man never let him get more than a few breaths into the darkness before loudly demanding that he turn the page.

John could feel the sleep weighing on him just as surely as he could feel Sherlock's mounting annoyance. A buzz at the door, though, and the heaviness of sleep left him immediately as he sat up and marked their place in the book. The energy shield fell quickly, cameras reporting to the outside observer that John was indeed on the proper side of the divide. Sherlock lept off the bed, nearly vaulting as he walked through without effort, his eyes large and radiant as though he'd somehow been expecting the unexpected intrusion. It could really mean one of two things, John thought, and the first was proven more or less correct the instant the cell door opened to admit a harried Detective Inspector Lestrade.

Sherlock did not give him so much as a second to speak, charging into his questions immediately. "Who was it?" he asked, standing near to the greying man as though he'd somehow left his spacial awareness back on the bed.

The man looked at John, his lips thin and jaw set, before allowing his attention to be consumed by Sherlock as he addressed the hologram instead. "Dr. Grable is unaccounted for since we left Titan."

It was as though the man had just told Sherlock it was Christmas. Sherlock literally jumped for joy--a completely inappropriate response--before spinning about in excitement as he grinned wildly at the officer watching him with grim fascination. "Excellent," he cried, settling down in body but still brimming with excitement in his eyes. "John and I would like a two-person cell and a self-propulsion light beam for myself."

"Sorry, what?"

"You're going to let us out of here," he explained with nothing but sincere expectations. "I'm just letting you know the accommodations we'd prefer."

John pursed his lips against a smile, not sure which of the two of them he felt aligned with. He wasn't exactly sure what Sherlock meant by that but thus far he'd been right about everything so doubting him wasn't his smartest recourse.

Lestrade still seemed on the fence about trusting Sherlock implicitly. "What makes you think--"

"It's the only way to save a man's life."

Well, that clarified things. Sort of. Not at all. John scooted closer to the edge of the bed, legs folding under him as he pulled up nearer to their conversation. Where Sherlock was the embodiment of catastrophic energies, Lestrade was far more like a rocket with a very long fuse. That fuse seemed to shorten the more assured the hologram became. This was a professional man with years of experience. John almost felt inclined to explain to Sherlock that it might be best to tone it down a bit.

Not that he left much time to get a word in edge-wise. "My killer has taken care of one of two loose ends--two people who are capable of exposing him. Both of them are dead, but luckily one of them is me. And the only way for him to take me out once and for all is to target John," Sherlock explained, his speech fast but his words not difficult to follow. "You're down two doctors on a deep space mining vessel. Plenty of injuries to see to. I'm sure there's a minimum staffing requirement. Could cost millions to have to abort now due to a shortage of medical personnel. But, of course, my killer can't afford to have any more murders on board so we're looking at the first rehearsal for staging the suicide he will eventually try and make you all believe John will commit in the future. His target will be an elderly doctor and he will try to make it seem either accidental or natural depending on the age. Once he is dead, reassigning John to his post with added security detail will seem the most cost-effective means of continuing on. I, of course, would be an inconvenient distraction if still emanating audio from his person and so having my own projection unit will allow me to continue to serve him in a rehabilitation function while not impeding his medical practice. I'm just saving you the trouble of letting an innocent man die and keeping our killer from getting a chance to practice covert murder by skipping ahead to a mutually desired outcome."

Lestrade's jaw hung slightly ajar as he stared in stunned stupor, his brown eyes shaded under the length of his forehead as curiosity turned to a scowl. "What makes you think that all's going to happen?"

"What made me think a person on staff in the medical bay would go missing after Titan? Bit specific to be a coincidence, Inspector, wouldn't you agree?"

There was that shortening fuse again. John licked his lips as he watched the silver hair man straighten, his proficiency in his work somehow threatened by Sherlock's candor. "Well, then, we just set a trap and wait," the man said, a transparent attempt to propose something greater than the hologram's own plot.

Sherlock's eyes rolled in their sockets, snipping off another half-foot of fuse. "This man isn't just some psychopath who felt like enjoying a bit of murder. Something very specific and terrible is going on--we just don't know it yet. Whatever it is was more horrific in execution than being murdered and worth killing me for. He even went as far as to attempt decapitation. He gave me memory inhibiting drugs and still tried to take my head. What does that suggest to you, Inspector?"

It would have been a good attempt to feed the ego of the lawman if it weren't quite obviously a trap to prove the opposite. John waited quietly as Lestrade jerked his chin with a cocky roll of his shoulders. "Wanted a trophy," he said.

Sherlock frowned and pointed to John in invitation. John wished he wouldn't drag him into this but... well, he did have a point. He raked his bottom lip with his teeth before settling on the ways of thought that Sherlock had impressed upon him. "He realized just how much neither of you knew you knew."

"Exactly." Sherlock's proud smile did not help the situation. He turned away from John again and furthered his challenge against the Detective Inspector. "He could kill me without fear of any mind scanner finding evidence of my murder but there was no way to hide or erase the very things I was murdered for. At some point, it's all going to make sense--I have the pieces to figure this out, just not the context. This is everything he was afraid of and exactly why people will die so he can get to John."

With a deadpan scowl, Lestrade nodded, tongue probing the inside of his cheeks. "So we just put Dr. Watson out there like some big bait?" he asked, apparently more capable of swallowing his pride than John had given him credit for.

"We get John and myself out there so I can figure out what is going on on this ship. I can't do it from in here and we lose time going back and forth like this. You're marginally more intelligent than most other people so I know you'll do the right thing."

That certainly caught him off guard. Lestrade smirked, as though not quite sure how to take that. "Only marginally, hm?"

Sherlock's face shrugged though his eyes betrayed his amusement. "Well, you're not so stupid as to fight against the evidence when it doesn't conform to the story you tell yourself."

"And how's that?"

Sherlock opened his mouth but then closed it without a sound, pointing instead back to John as he had before, leaving the question open for him to respond to. It was a rather annoying way to make sure John was paying attention, but it made John a little excited to be trusted to answer correctly on his behalf. He cleared his throat, doing his best to hide his own amusement as well as he sucked in on his cheeks to curb a smile. "You had this conversation with him--not at me," he explained, a little ball of pleasure forming in his chest at the spread of the infection that was Sherlock Holmes. It wasn't just him who saw a man instead of coding, then. He wasn't alone in his assessment of the hologram genius. Sherlock's smile remained unconstrained and John knew at once that the man had known from the beginning that he'd get his way the instant Lestrade looked to him for the answers that he sought.

Lestrade rubbed at the back of his neck, a posture of reluctant surrender. "Well, it's not too hard to work out the brains of this operation," he said, a slight jab at John not going amiss though for his pride, John didn't mind. "Self-propulsion unit?"

Sherlock nodded. "Yes. And a cell for two. After which, I'm all yours. You'll be the scary Detective Inspector everyone listens to and I'll be there to feed you your lines. You'll be up for a promotion when I'm done with you."

"Bribes don't interest me," Lestrade said with a hint of annoyance.

Sherlock rolled his eyes once more. "It's bragging, not bribing. Try not to confuse the two in future, Inspector."

"Lestrade," he offered--or corrected; one or the other. He didn't bother to extend his hand though the meaning was understood.

"Sherlock," the hologram said in kind. It wasn't necessary, but it marked a start. They were allies now. And on some level, that meant another person who believed in John's innocence in as much as they believed in Sherlock.

The hologram retreated slightly, allowing Lestrade to take up space in the room with his natural intimidation while he finally bent to someone else's ego as part of his overarching plan. "John's excellent demeanor and cooperation in the program over the past month should prove evidence enough of his readiness to return to work under surveillance, especially seeing as there has been nothing to suggest a relapse. I'm sure Dr. Thompson can be persuaded to give her own recommendation and I will be insulted if I am not consulted to some degree." He put his hands on his hips, dwarfing his own frame in the large confines of his elegant fingers. For the first time he seemed to grow serious, lips thin rather than parted with a grin. "This of course makes it your job to protect John once he's released for duty. The added security needed to make sure John doesn't kill again is precisely what we need to make sure no one kills him. Your best men, Lestrade. You have every reason to assign them there. If John dies, they turn me off. While it's more or less an annoyance to me that I'll never know why I died, you can be assured you will find out in your own time and not live long to regret failing me. This is in everyone's best interest, Lestrade. John gets cleared of this murder charge, I get the information I lack, and you get to save the day. Do we have a deal?"

The Detective Inspector frowned thoughtfully, the pull of teeth digging into the underside of his bottom lip making his chin slightly pucker. "I can't make promises but I'll speak to the Captain. Let him know we're dangerously low on medical staff. Put the idea out there."

It seemed enough, for now, to make Sherlock happy. He smiled, crossing back to John's side of the electric divide that pointlessly served to protect the other man. "I have high expectations for you, Lestrade," he said, plopping himself back on the bed in a clear sign of dismissal.

"Yeah, well... We'll see how things go." Lestrade looked from Sherlock to John, not entirely his first notice that the other man was there but suddenly a reminder that he had been and Lestrade had not spoken a word to him. It was a wasted formality at this point and so he gave him a short, understanding nod which John returned just the same as the older man turned back towards the door to the cell and left them alone to their book. The electric wall in the room fell shortly after but instilled little want to move. John scooted himself back against the wall where Sherlock was waiting and settled the book back in his hands to proceed.

"You never told me about any of that," John said as he relaxed, legs crossed at the ankles.

"You didn't need to know. We're trying to put across the idea of a man who has accepted his fate, yes? Telling you I think I can get you out of here sooner than you might have thought would influence the act."

"Or you just wanted to impress me in front of the Detective Inspector."

Sherlock raised his left brow as he fell back with his shoulder next to John's. "Do you really think I'm that childish?" he asked.

John cleared his throat and said no more as he smiled and turned the page.


	11. Chapter 11

Long gone was the beige uniform with the badge and insignia that proclaimed him Second Technician Holmes of the MW Mining Ship Endeavor 1. Given one thing to wear, Sherlock chose the memory of another set of clothes which were to him a second skin and would not confuse the masses with advertised utility. It was an impossibly well-tailored suit that fit around his broad shoulders and narrow hips in a manner John had only ever really noted in the form-fitting gowns of women. It rather tarnished memories of himself at dances and weddings. John had never looked quite that good in a suit, though in his defense he'd never seen anyone wear one to quite the effect Sherlock Holmes did. He was a black blur when he spun on his soles and the deep purple button down made his pale skin profound and his eyes set in splendor. It was really the smile he wore that did it, though, as he beamed with radiance in the new found freedom of no longer being perpetually tied to John for his own mobility.

And all that went right out the door when he fell face down into the bottom bunk of their new cell like the child he so often was, the illusion of sophistication cut in half mid belly-flop which only served to find him phasing through the pillow and above the untouched quilt.

John tried to contain the chuckle but did not bother to school the smile that came with it as he put the box of belongings on the table in the middle of the room. "I take it that one's yours, is it?" he asked, half wondering if there would be little kicks of joy to accompany the palpable giddiness in the other man.

Sherlock sighed loudly, turning his head to the side to view John, fringe soft above his eyes. "My bunk, my chair, my room, my own self-propulsion unit," he listed as he rolled fully onto his back. "Finally people are seeing sense around here."

That was one way of looking at it. John shrugged and pulled out a chair to sit on, not feeling all that inclined to voice what they both already knew. Only high-security risk prisoners were detained in solitary. Now that John had been reclassified as non-violent, he was permitted to share quarters with other inmates of which there were thankfully none. Cell 2-21 was his alone for the time being. Theirs to share. While not anywhere near as relieved as Sherlock seemed, the thought of it did make John feel like he too was made of light, full of brightness and air and without boundaries. It was sort of like happiness but removed from any definite source. It just felt good to be alive for once. For once, everything felt like it was right.

A fresh set of real clothes certainly helped in that matter as well. Sherlock wasn't the only one permitted to reset his standard attire. Gone were the prison jumpsuits and returned was John's personal apparel: pressed trousers, assorted patterned button downs, and a few jumpers and cardigan to insulate above. It'd all get covered under a white smock once he stepped back into the medical bay but it still mattered on some level that he was himself underneath. If not for the altered-mass cuffs around his wrists and ankles, it would have felt like he'd simply moved into cheaper, shared accommodations rather than been reclassified and given permission to work--at a considerably reduced fee from his contracted salary. Freedom was worth it. There was very little about the situation that wasn't worth the minor inconvenience of slave wages and generalized detainment.

"When does your shift start?" Sherlock asked as he stretched his back, arms up behind his head.

"Thirteen-hundred." Any minute now. John leaned in against his own weight, elbows hard against his knees as he sat hunched in the chair. "They know I'm coming--had to fill out questionnaires on whether they'd be comfortable with it. Sort of surprised enough of them said yes. Still. Elephant in the room. Plenty of awkwardness to look forward to."

The hologram nodded, face falling to mellow though his cheeks were still pink with mirth. He looked up at the underside of the bed above him, crossing his ankle over his raised knee to expose tall, black socks. "Well, I suppose they know you better than the judge did. You're hardly harmless but, well, not vicious. Which reminds me: did you know Dr. Grable?"

"The bloke who went missing?" John shook his head. "No, not really. Not personally. I worked trauma and he was more on the GP side. You get a fair bit of both on a ship like this. People get sick, and people get their hands caught in rotating machinery that rip the whole limb clean off. Different needs, different doctors," he explained, though there was some lingering bitterness at being assigned as a general practitioner for the duration of the tour. No one was really all that keen to let him at a scalpel again it seemed. He understood. Didn't mean he liked it.

"So you had heard of him, then."

"Sarah mentioned him a few times. I knew the nurses better than I knew most of the other doctors on staff, though. But I wouldn't have exactly had the opportunity to piss him off either way. If he framed me, it was probably because I was in the room. Opportunistic or whatever," he surmised, following along in the unspoken to which Sherlock undoubtedly operated. Going from assumption to assumption, they now knew the identity of the killer's accomplice that night. But they were still nowhere near defining the motive--not for the murder of Sherlock Holmes nor the framing of John himself. All Dr. Grable's disappearance had done for their case was give them a reason to believe that Sherlock really could solve the mystery. In the end, they were still no closer to anything even resembling an answer. But there was real hope now and a spring of anticipation.

The cell door gave a premonitory chime, security officers standing by outside. It was the only warning given before the cuffs along John's hands and feet grew heavier, weighing him down, pulling on his muscles just enough that any movement he might attempt to make would be sluggish and hampered while walking would prove to be a straining feat; running near impossible. Altered-mass was a godsend in many ways, allowing the cuffs to be nearly weightless when he needed to be at his most dexterous while still capable of incapacitating at weights exceeding 8 stone per band. The shift in pressure wasn't painful though his knees dug hard into his ulna from the less than preferable posture he'd taken. It was a simple safety measure, no different from the electric field they now replaced in the extension of his mobility.

The officers entered and switched the cuffs off from their detention setting upon finding John quite calm and agreeable, ready for work and absent of surprises. John was fairly surprised to see an accompaniment of two armed guards, though. Money proved to speak louder than criminal conviction but it seemed no one had forgotten why exactly he was detained in B deck's security quarter. Still, two seemed excessive when it only took one to reset the altered-mass cuffs to rip his arms from their sockets and land him flat on the floor in futile agony. Then again, Sherlock had requested that John be protected and given reasons why such precautions be put in place. John had to hand it to Lestrade for his thoroughness in that case. The two men were certainly of the stoic, hardened breed that would give other people confidence and perhaps deter stupidity. He scanned their right breasts for the name badges sewn into their olive uniforms: Sergeants Peters and Jones. He was curious as to how much the two of them knew about Sherlock's deductions and the plot at hand. In the end, that was really more up to Lestrade's discretion. John was simply happy they both had names he could remember.

"You're due in the Medical Bay in five minutes," Peters said, hand at the altered-mass controls set confidently at his belt.

John shrugged a smile across his face in Sherlock's direction as he pushed up, slapping his thighs with both hands before begging his bones to rise. "You going to go with me?" he asked.

"The whole point of the self-propulsion unit was so that I didn't have to follow you anymore," Sherlock reminded him, his eyes flickering over to the Sergeants with a lifted brow. "I'm going to meet with Lestrade on G deck and see if we can discover anything. I'll need to borrow his hands."

It was what he'd expected, but not entirely what he was hoping for. John nodded anyway, adjusting the lines of his grey cardigan as he pressed a parting wave to the air and strode carefully towards his armed entourage. He had a big day ahead of him. Best not to keep it waiting.

They took special lifts unavailable to the general public as they traveled down from B deck to the more common floors below. Of the eight lettered decks, only command and security were restricted to special access--decks A & B respectively--while the others allowed for mostly free movement be they entertainment and living sectors--C through E--or work decks with operational machinery and a vast cargo hold--F through H. John had never left C deck before his arraignment. Storefronts, crew quarters, eateries, a cinema and the medical bay itself made venturing anywhere else on the frankly massive vessel a time intensive and unrewarding excursion. C deck housed specialists like scientists, engineers and physicians like himself. Every deck closer to the engines saw lesser and lesser ranked men and women, the qualities of their venues in decline with their rank and social standing. Sherlock had been quartered on E. It was interesting in a way to know that, barring his need for surgical intervention, John would never have met the man had things not gone the way they had. It wasn't exactly a cause to be thankful, but it made a point of lights in dark places.

It was a relativity quick trip to the medical bay, not long enough to unsettle his nerves nor short enough for him not to gain some tightness in his chest. He honestly didn't care what the other staff thought of him but working with people who might despise him based on what they believed him to have done was not a thought that thrilled him. It was equally unthrilling to see Lestrade standing in the middle of the open admittance chamber with an audience of medical personnel hanging on his every word. John could hear him speaking as they approached, but could not discern his exact words. It didn't take Sherlock Holmes to figure out what it was about, though. Words of comfort. Words of warning. Statements on their assured welfare and the trust security had in their ability to gauge John's readiness to return as well as the ability to stop him should anything go wrong. John doubted there would be much mention about the company's decision to put profits above safety but knowing his own innocence made it moot at best. The sergeants at his sides held John back while Lestrade continued, allowing their superior to maintain ownership of the audience's attention as the briefing continued. He was early, it seemed.

And others were late. "John!" a very familiar voice called in surprise, the click of heels on the hard floor of the halls hastening towards him.

Despite himself, John felt a smile round his cheeks. He hadn't realized how long he'd been without familiar company, nor how much he'd missed it. "Hello, Sarah," he said, making sure his movements were slow and obvious lest his entourage become overzealous with surprise. She was already wearing her white coat over a soft pink dress, the open hems of the coat's front closure hanging from her breasts like a curtain to frame the feminine attire. She had never been one to wear much make-up and her light brown hair was swept back in an easy ponytail. John had forgotten just how beautiful she was to him. Her nervous smile crinkled her deep brown eyes below the knitting of her brows.

"They'd said you might be coming back," she said as she stopped several feet out, maintaining a distance seemingly set as much by the presence of armed guards as the proximity of a convict. "Uh... you look, ...good."

John's smile slid from pleasant to charming. "Thanks. You look best," he said, following impulse over thought as old habits showed themselves to be indestructible. It was as if the guards weren't even there anymore, their presence tuned out for all intents and purposes. It was just him and a pretty girl in the hallway together, chatting like in the months before when everything was different. He nodded towards the open room across the way and to Lestrade's back as he continued to speak. "You know, you're missing the briefing. Abridged version: You're safe. For the record, though I am innocent. So you can relax. I'm not a murderer. Just very, _very_ unlucky."

Sarah's smile remained somewhat nervous as she tucked a stray hair behind her ear. "Right. Of course." She looked the guards over, eyes lingering on the e-pistols on their belts and on John's own white cuffs. She didn't believe him. Somehow, that was alright. This was still the most attention she'd given him since their break up. It was interesting how much more willing she was to talk to someone she thought might be a killer than she had been her own ex. Her assessment of the security men must have set something in her at ease, though, as she relaxed her shoulders and with it the tightness in her smile. "Guess your luck's improving, though. I mean, here you are."

John crossed his arms casually over his chest. "Yeah. All things considered. Mostly Sherlock's doing but I like to think I help a bit."

"Sherlock?" The edge of surprise in her voice matched the height of her overgrown brows. "You mean.. isn't that the man you--?"

"Murdered? Hardly." Sherlock completed for her as he stepped out from around the guards like a coo-coo pronouncing the hour. Sarah's body seemed to prickle in goosebumps as the guards flinched on their hair-trigger responsiveness to the unannounced and unexpected arrival of the hologram. His smile said he was proud of himself. John had to disagree. Still, Sherlock took the earned quiet from shock to be an allowance for his continued intervention, marching between them in the space awarded by Sarah's own guarded caution. "The means alone prove the unlikelihood," he said. "I think if John were going to murder anyone he'd first administer a paralytic, explain to them why they deserved to die, and then administer some sort of venom to ensure their death was excruciating but not lingering."

John could feel every muscle in his jaw flexing. "Could you maybe not use as a conversational piece the ways in which you imagine me killing someone?" he asked, for the first time genuinely aware of just how inappropriate Sherlock could be.

Sherlock shrugged, spinning on his heels in an about-face. "I wasn't necessarily singling you out. I'd already considered all the ways in which I would. I got bored."

Heaven help them both if this man had become almost normal to him. John scowled and shrugged apologetically towards Sarah, offering his unspoken condolences. "Sarah, this is Sherlock. Sherlock, this is Dr. Sawyer."

"This is the one you dated?" Sherlock asked, mostly ignoring her outside a quick sweep of her person.

John licked his lips, rubbing his middle finger over his brow in light of questioning that could very well wait until she wasn't standing right there. "Uh... yes."

"On purpose?"

John's molars clenched together hard. "Sorry, what?"

"Had you realized she was cheating on you with Dr. Grable before she broke things off with you or were you unaware she was 'hooking up' with our mysteriously absent doctor?"

"She wasn't--"

"It shouldn't come as a great surprise," the hologram continued, completely undeterred by the looks he was receiving from the disbelieving to the shocked. He waved it all aside the same. "You admitted you were a terrible boyfriend. Obviously, she had a confidant, someone to confide in, someone who was more considerate and open on an emotional level than you."

" _Sherlock_." John could almost feel himself spitting with embarrassment masked in rage. Not embarrassment on his behalf--for Sarah. Her head was down and her arms crossed over her stomach. He didn't care who Sherlock thought he was, there was no excuse to be so rude and insulting in the face of a complete stranger. "I thought you had something to do on G deck today. Very important. Couldn't wait," he said, keeping to his own sensibilities in knowing a true reprimanding would be had in private.

Sherlock sighed, a frown offered in apology more for his coming absence than his words. "Sadly, yes. I only came to acquire Lestrade whom I see is now ready to depart. Pleasure to meet you, Dr. Sawyer," he said, a plastic smile of his face as he inclined his head in a mock bow then melted through John rather than going around him to grab the attention of the departing Detective Inspector. It didn't feel like anything to have the other man walk through him but it made John's skin prickle. He hated it and rolled his shoulders to dismiss the phantom of his lingering presence.

"That's the man they say you killed?" Sarah asked, edging closer as she too watched the hologram commandeer the grey-haired officer with nothing more forceful than his own powerful presence. She shook her head in obvious dismay. "I think you did the world a favor, John."

Well aware of the guards in his presence, John kept his reply on the subject brief though instilled with humor. "Have to admit, some days it's a little annoying someone else got that particular pleasure. He's not all bad, though. Just... impossible. Sorry about... well, him."

"Don't worry about it, John. This is a mining ship. Believe me, stuck in space with half a million men, I've been called far worse than unfaithful," she said, her cheeks still red all the same and shoulders caved in as she cradled her chest.

John did not doubt that for a second though the truth of it was hardly consoling. "Then I apologize on behalf of my gender. We're not all bad."

"Not all," she agreed, the hint of wickedness narrowing her eyes the likes of which he remembered in their more privately shared moments. "A girl's gatta have a few bad boys in her life, though."

"Have I mentioned I live in a medium-security cell block and am currently sporting this year's latest trend in shackles?" John raised one arm and shook it slightly, letting the white cuff shift along the edge of his sleeve.

Sarah chuckled. "Dr. Watson, are you flirting with me?"

"No, of course not. If I were, I'd have lied and said it was a _high_ -security cell block. I got demoted after passing the risk assessment."

Sarah chuckled again, her hand coming to rest against his forearm as she gave him a gentle press in fondness. "I think prison's done you some good, John. Welcome back." Her smile remained genuine and sweet as she took the lead, the click-clack of her heels beckoning him to follow and come inside where the rest of their compatriots were waiting. They seemed to feed of her assurance as he trailed slightly behind her, escorted still by two armed men whose presence seemed to melt away as Sherlock's had, falling into the ambiance as nurses marched along and fellow doctor's looked up in curiosity only to return to their task at hand.

This was life again. This was living. And with the donning of his white lab coat, John felt the past months' time slip away as procedure and protocol rose instead to give his idle mind an ousting in the field he most excelled.


	12. Chapter 12

John hadn't expected nothing to have changed and it was hard to pinpoint in that cursory fog of conjecture if he was relieved the staff around him had fallen into complacent monotony within hours of his return or if, for some reason, he was truly disappointed by it. He'd expected having to comfort unease with explanations of his innocence but instead felt somewhat inclined to remind people that they were working with a convicted killer. Maybe the presence of two armed guards was adequate assurance to them but somehow John couldn't help but feel it was more a matter of looking at him and finding him to be non-threatening. It was something he'd dealt with most of his life.

Napoleon complex; "short man syndrome". It was a fallacy--besides which he wasn't that short-but like most lies there was a hint of truth. It wasn't so much that being five-eight made him feel a reason to compensate so much as other men literally looked down on him. His face was round even though his body was lean and likely far more toned than most of the other doctors' due to his interrupted career in the corps. He didn't wear fashionable attire but instead preferred his comfortable clothes. John knew he looked complacent in many ways, and that his cool confidence was overlooked among the far more hungry and eager that in some cases towered above him. In the corps people had stopped and taken notice at around the same time he was swinging their bodies over his back and heaving them away to safety, Good-Guy John Watson hauling competitive pricks out of danger on a stocky frame built to carry. They'd rethought their initial appraisal when the sexy sergeant who rolled her eyes at them exchanged parting kisses with him in the hallway in the wrinkled uniform she'd worn the day before. Actions always spoke louder and John was nothing if not a man of action. But that was the space corps.

Civilians--men mostly--seemed to always make the mistake of looking at danger and sizing themselves up against it based on appearances. John imaged most of the men working in the medical bay looked at him and thought, guards or no guards, they could take him; they could be a hero. Not many opportunities available to prove oneself an alpha among other men. What it really said was that everyone at their heart of hearts was willing something bad to happen just for the opportunity to be men of action with stories to tell. John wanted them to think he was dangerous, wanted them to feel lucky to have Peters and Jones there in his shadow. Instead, killer or not, they saw their opportunity. One man's Napoleon complex was really just every other tall prick's hubris. John wasn't a threat, conviction or not, because he didn't strut around like he had a cock as thick as a shoe in every display of overcompensation that insecure men had invented in the span of human ignorance. It almost made him wish Sherlock had stayed to be his ruler in a room full of competitive cocks. Which was petty. And no better than them. But after five hours, John was okay with being a little petty in his search for due respect.

The women didn't seem to have the same issue with not being wary though John had never cared much for instilling anything short of ease in them. It wasn't that he considered them more delicate in the same vein that other man did in their appraisal of him--far from it. He'd seen enough woman in combat situations to know they fought harder and dirtier than any man he'd ever met. If he didn't want so be pepper sprayed, kneed in the groin and with the pointed toe of a heeled shoe aimed at his temple, best to smile and keep his hands where they could see them or else he had no doubt he'd be on a gurney faster than he could articulate much more above a pained grunt. In a way it made Sarah akin to an ambassador as she leaned against a counter beside him with coffee and conversation. Her presence seemed to pacify the people who he imagined had checked 'no' to his return. If he was going to kill again, she was at least the more likely target than them. Human beings at their finest. Dog-eat-dog had never been the most appropriate species for the phrase. Or maybe, just as likely, John had spent far too long with only Sherlock for company to expect to leave his cynicism at the door.

But Sarah smelled good and her voice was a pleasant memory of the times spent before. Even if maybe she might have cheated on him before their 'us' was over. Even if she had forgotten he didn't take sugar in his coffee.

Sarah kept her warm mug between both hands, watching machines spin and timers tick down as their break slowly spent itself among conversation about work. Boring conversations but better than silence; more acceptable than talk on topics that practically screamed to be mentioned. Polite. John wouldn't have minded in the least had she just come right out with it but most people weren't like Sherlock in that respect. They circled in like a spiral until they felt they'd earned the right to come to the point. In that way, it was more relief than surprise when Sarah lept from topics of machine maintenance with "Mind if I ask you something?" There was satisfaction in hearing the easily read segue.

But that didn't mean he had to play along.

"If you're wondering if I'm free on Friday, I'm afraid you'll have to have your people speak to my people," John replied with a jokingly apologetic shrug, gesturing over his shoulder to Peters and Jones who could probably have used a coffee themselves but remained stoic and silent in their sentry tour.

Sarah bumped him with her shoulder as she rolled her eyes, the physical engagement all John needed to know she meant it when she said she wasn't afraid. "I don't make the same mistakes twice," she jested, then let her smile slip from warm to hesitant as she stared down into her mug. "No, it's, uh... it's about Sherlock."

"Oh. Sherlock." John took a deep breath, leaning hard with his elbows on the counter. "Well, he _is_ handsome, can't fault him there, but I still think I'm the better bet if you weigh personality and tangibility into the mix."

She laughed at him, hesitation sinking away as his manner left invitation with an openness now disclosed. "Not that. I mean, he's part of your rehabilitation program, right?"

"Mm. Yeah, that's what the judge said."

"So why is he able to.. I don't know... do his own thing? How is he helping you right now?" she asked, though the phrasing of the question wasn't quite what they both knew she wanted to know. No one who met Sherlock thought it was a shame that he had died. Ella and Lestrade both had voiced their opinions on the limitation of Sherlock's helpfulness in his rehabilitation. Everyone had wanted him turned off at at least one point or another. Some people still did. So how was he helping? Why did John keep him still? It was a very, _very_ easy question to answer without bringing more questionable beliefs into the mix.

"Unofficially, Sherlock's investigating his murder, trying to find who did it since we both know it wasn't me. He's a genius. Honest. He's the whole reason I got the opportunity to come back to work. He figured out that his killer had an accomplice and told Lestrade someone in the medical bay would be gone before we reached Titan weeks before it happened. Earned him the DI's trust and me a bit of freedom."

Sarah laughed, shaking her head as she let it hang slightly, the stray hairs from her ponytail falling forward on a derisive sigh.

He scowled. "What?"

"Tim was always going to alight on Titan, John," she said, her voice low and not fit to carry further than between the two of them. "He told me he was leaving, god, must have been at least ten different times. Endeavor 1 just wasn't what he thought it would be. Expected something calmer from the sound of it. It's just a coincidence." She cast a fleeting look towards the sergeants on duty, keeping her eyes low as though such things should remain a secret. "You really think Tim murdered someone?"

John swallowed on the lump in his throat, not quite sure what to make of the idea that it really was just luck and circumstance that had gotten them this far. He licked his lips, fingers tapping along the ceramic mug. "No, Sherlock thinks he was just an accomplice. Got the drugs and helped dispose of evidence."

Sarah scoffed and rolled her eyes, her chin shaking back and forth. "Oh, so that's why he thinks I cheated on you. He thinks this is some sort of jealous lovers plot against you. You know me better than that, John."

He nodded. He did. He wouldn't have found much fault in her to want to be with someone else given the lack of attention he'd given her, but she had left him when she'd given up on them. If she'd wanted to be with Tim Grable instead, she'd have dated him openly after their break up. There was no reason for her to be quiet about her affections once they were over. So Sherlock had it wrong. Just as he seemed to have been wrong about an accomplice leaving on Titan.

Sarah leaned in close, elbow against his elbow as she held her mug on the counter as well. "Honestly, though, how well do you really know this Sherlock guy? Who knows what he got up to in his life to have ended up murdered like that. I mean, I only barely saw him but he's... well, he's kind of a dick."

"He used to be a detective," John said.

"Is that what he told you?" Sarah raised one brow, her lips thin and her expression doubtful. "The man was a second technician--lowest rank on the ship. How do you know he's not just some vindictive, manipulative crook? Maybe he deserved what happened to him. Had it coming."

John's smile felt forced as he plotted a course to divert from the thoughts that now wouldn't leave him. "Is that you admitting you don't think I did it or excusing the fact that you think I did but are still willing to talk to me?"

Sarah sighed, her hand switching from the white mug to close around his wrist in a short squeeze, a symbolic hug. "I'm sorry, John," she said, fingers lingering along his skin in an all too grateful reminder of the benefits of human touch. "I should have visited you," she said. "I know you and... and honestly, if our break up made you go psycho-killer, it should be my hologram following you around. But it's not. It's like you said: it's just bad luck. You're not a murderer."

John let his other hand rest over the curl of her fingers. "Thank you," he said, and squeezed her own hand in return. She did not flinch nor lose the genuine warmth in her eyes. There was a reason he'd loved this woman once--or at the very least been very fond of her. He was more than grateful to have her there now, and with reluctance he let her hand go in the shadow of men who were likely to soon interfere. "Can you do me a favor?" he asked, his own voice lowering in vain hopes of more aversion. "Let's.. let's keep the Tim thing between us for now. I think the main reason Lestrade is investigating more into the murder is because Sherlock appears to be phenomenal at what he does."

Sarah smiled and nodded, her promise written in the wrinkles near her eyes. "If it keeps you here. Just be careful. I'm worried it's not detective work that he truly excels at."

John nodded and breathed in deep on the constriction in his chest that warned he may have been too trusting of beliefs that shared one source.


	13. Chapter 13

"Find anything on G deck?" John asked, moving only his eyes as he watched the hologram phase through the cell door in the midst of a confident stride, his projector undoubtedly sliding by through the notch in the door intended for the service of food.

Sherlock looked over at him, his smile hinting at danger as he took instead to a prowl towards the bunks where John currently lie resting at the evening hour. Having the top bunk put him near enough Sherlock's height when he stood at its side. The hologram pretended to lean up against it with casual grace, the smile lost with their greeting observed until it was a pallet of fact and details reported leisurely and straight. "Nothing out of the ordinary," he said, his forearm projected against the upper bed frame as he rested his forehead against it. "Several recurring service logs on the unit I worked on the day I died--recurrent but not following any pattern. The vibrations on G deck make that understandable so we did a sweep of my entire block. Only registered technicians have serviced the area and only those who have had the units assigned to them. Whoever's responsible covered their tracks very well either by procuring the proper codes or bribing complacency. Lestrade's promised to pull up all the old surveillance footage from the wall units that were used in the original murder investigation for me to view for any further clues."

"That's you set for tomorrow, then," John noted, trying not to think too much about the feeling in his stomach that reminded him of being picked last in a game of football.

Sherlock shrugged, his face musing into a squirm of expression lines that wavered between doubt and acceptance. "If he can get them to me that early. Would be easier if it didn't require the additional procurement of voice-activated software but both you and he are busy with a day job so that's my options taken care of." He let himself hang heavy in the air, signs of a body well ready for rest left to mimic one truly worn out. He wore a peaceful sort of expression though, with eyes thin as though they were still holding the smile his lips had long let pass. His first day not trapped at John's side had seemed to have been an enjoyable departure from the monotony of jail. He looked almost drunk with the novelty of their new situation as he shifted needlessly at his side. "And what of you? Was everyone well behaved?"

John could hardly refuse him the scowl he deserved. "Outside of you? Yeah. Everything went fine. Did you really have to be insulting towards Sarah?"

"It's not insulting if it's fact--it's earned criticism."

"She didn't cheat on me," John corrected, adjusting his head against the pillow as he felt his annoyance weighing his head further down with the strain of anxiety thick in his neck.

Sherlock's lips pulled thin on another squirming shrug as he pushed off from his lean against the bunk frame and stepped back just enough not to crowd. "I don't think it would be in any way surprising to discover that she's part of the motive against you. Didn't you notice?" he asked, his left brow arching cynically over his parsley-colored eye. "When I detailed ways in which you might try and kill someone, she did not display any outward signs of surprise or fear--both of which would have been normal if she believed you capable of such things. When I mentioned her cheating on you with Dr. Grable, however? People like their secrets, John, and hearing them articulated causes instinctual reactions."

John's scowl fell harder, his own brows hanging against his field of vision like a valance drawn too low. "The whole thing was a set up just to see how she'd react?"

The pride in Sherlock's grin did not foretell of anything good as he set to pacing in languid strides that kept him center in John's field of perception. "We know Dr. Grable was involved but he has no link to you other than working in the same space. The only person you've ever mentioned from the medical bay is Sarah so it stands to reason that she is in some way implicated in the motive for your framing."

John pushed up on his elbows, careful of the bunk's ceiling but no longer caring to engage while reclined. Sherlock walked all over people anyway; he didn't need to make it look easy for him. "Yeah, well we _don't_ know Dr. Grable was involved. I spoke to Sarah. She said Tim had been planning to leave on Titan since before all this. It's a coincidence; it doesn't mean anything," he explained, expecting to see a sputter of denial or rampant disbelief in regards to information from a source other than himself. And while it did bring Sherlock to a stop, the vacant look he gave as he added the details to the puzzle only seemed to help create the reality the other man was drawing.

"Not necessarily," he said, his fingers rising to steeple at his lips. "It could very well be the nail in the coffin, in fact. If Tim had always planned to leave on Titan then whatever is coming is coming before our next stop within Neptune's orbit. Rats flee a sinking ship, John. We're running out of time."

John rolled his eyes, suppressing a laugh. "Sherlock, _listen_ to yourself. The only reason you think it's Dr. Grable is because he left. I'm telling you he didn't leave on account of being murdered by your killer the way you figured it would happen. The basis of your deduction does - not - exist," he punctuated, leaning hard on his side as he continued to challenge him, hoping to see some sign of acceptance in the penetrating stare Sherlock maintained in locked discord with his own. John had his attention but he may as well have been addressing the wall. Sherlock wasn't interested in being told he was wrong. John clenched his jaw. "Why are you still clinging on to the belief that Tim was involved?"

"Because she flinched," he said. "Because only a doctor could get the drugs on record and have access by which to frame you. By your own admission, you have no other relationships with your coworkers besides the one you had with Dr. Sawyer. So my best guess _has_ to be Dr. Grable. The only alternatives are Sarah and _you_."

John swallowed on the thickness in his throat at having himself rise once more to suspicion, even if only in the lashings out of a child. Nothing in the way Sherlock looked at him said he believed it for one second but he'd said it and he certainly wasn't trying to take it back. All it did was reinforce the fact that Sherlock could be wrong. About Tim. About Sarah. About everything. And John didn't care to hear it anymore. "It wasn't Sarah," he reiterated, leaving the rest to hang heavy in the air.

Sherlock scowled only slightly, as much worry in his face as defeat. "You willing to bet your life on that? Because if I am wrong and it wasn't Dr. Grable, then you are currently working in the medical bay beside the very person who set you up."

There was a chill to those words and not one John accepted lightly. For everything he doubted from Sherlock, the involvement of medical personnel was not among the list. Even the courts had believed in that fact. Their answer to the question had been John. John was no longer sure what he believed his own answer to be. "Look, just... take it easy for a while, okay? I'm tired. Had a long shift. Let's just go to bed." He leaned back on his tailbone, finding the end of the blanket with his knee as he pulled it up to his hands rather than leaned forward to grasp it.

More than anything John had said, his dismissal seemed to hit Sherlock hardest. His mouth fell agape, his bottom lip protruding on the cusp of a pout. "Already? I just got back."

"Well, I've been here a while. I waited up for you but I'm tired now."

"You waited up just to argue with me!" Sherlock pointed out, pacing once more with both hands raking through his hair.

John sighed as he settled back down, blanket to shoulders, and rolled to face the wall. "You'd be more pissed off if we started reading and I fell asleep mid-chapter. It's time for bed."

Voice no longer emanating from around his neck, John could hear the difference as Sherlock spoke, the way the frustrated noises came from further away while words were spoken very near. "Tomorrow morning before work, then?" the hologram asked like a howling in his ear.

John rolled his shoulder, pushing him back with signs of discontent as he snuggled deeper into the bed. "Tomorrow morning I have to go see Ella before my shift. It'll probably be a few nights, Sherlock," he warned, realizing he meant it more so than as a threat.

Sherlock grunted, seething with a hiss. "At the very least, tell me next time that the evening's entertainment is going to be an argument. I'll put a bit more effort into proving you to be an idiot. I've certainly enough supporting evidence," he shouted, something desperate in his voice making John feel cold before silence claimed the night. Whether Sherlock stayed or left, John didn't check nor confirm. Instead, he stared at the wall, willing sleep to come, begging his mind to forget its doubts for just a handful of hours' peace.

The morning offered no better. Whether in his cell or the familiar confines of Dr. Thompson's office, John's mind refused to switch gears. It'd been stuck since his conversation with Sarah. It'd only gotten worse with his argument with Sherlock. He hadn't wanted to fight. Sarah was right, he didn't know much about the other man outside the few sentences here and there. How much more helpful might it have been to discuss the things he didn't know than to bicker about hypotheticals and a difference in opinions? He very much doubted Sarah was right in that Sherlock was somehow the scum of the earth in disguise but in as much as John's past with Sarah offered Sherlock some insight into who might have targeted John, there was reason to believe there was merit in asking about the final days and weeks of the dead man. He envied Lestrade the walk he'd taken of Sherlock's final route. It was small thing, but it felt like John's place to have been there. Lestrade had traced the path Sherlock had made in the time when his heart still beat. He'd touched the things his flesh had touched. John never had.

It was a dangerous place for his mind to go but as hard as he tried, he could not stop. He didn't want Lestrade to be Sherlock's favorite. He wanted to know why Sherlock wasn't in their room when he woke up. It wasn't like him to cling so hard but Sherlock was _his_ and he'd be lying if he didn't admit that it scared the shit out of him to feel that way with pictures of the crime scene etched in his memory of a deed he swore he couldn't do. But if not Tim, if not Sarah...

"Are you feeling alright?" Ella asked, concern tightening her brow as she observed him carefully from her chair.

John nodded, licking his dry lips as he took a moment to conceal his real thoughts for the practiced topics they'd settled on before. "Mm. Yeah. Just had a hard time winding down last night. Had, uh... had another argument with Sherlock. Been a while since the last."

Ella nodded, face like stone, as she held the point of her pen above the folded pad. "Is he continuing to voice discontent?"

"Not at things, just at me. Just a typical roommate spat. Not that big a deal."

"He's not a roommate, John. He's a hologram," she reminded him, her continued insistence leaving the rest of her words unnecessary, the breath through the parted, red-painted lips just a signal to interrupt what had all been said before. "John--"

"I'm not turning him off," he said, hands gesturing with finality. "He's good for me. I promise. No one likes a sycophant anyway."

"What about what's good for him?" she asked.

John's tongue felt thick at the back of his throat as a buzzing played on in his head. "I'm sorry?"

Ella slipped her pen through the coil at the top of her pad, knees crossed and hands clasped as the slight frown that pulled at her eyes set the black-hole spirals to hold him captive in the space of the breath he forgot to take. "Do you know how many holograms ask to be turned off?" she asked, not waiting for any semblance of reply. "Nearly every single one of them. And those who do not are mercifully terminated in light of their prolonged misery and resulting insanity."

John could feel the tremors in his limbs as his fingers gripped hard into the arm rests. He breathed deeply through his nose, muscles tight as he fought with his own memories against the words now being spoken. "You said holograms weren't real people. You--We have had this argument before. You said you didn't agree with me; you said they were just computer code."

"They are," she said. "And still, they're not. Which is why they can't survive for long. No hologram wants to be a hologram, John. It's an existence of sensory deprivation. They are entirely dependent on other people for everything and completely incapable of interacting with the world around them on a physical level. Human beings were not made to be so removed from our surroundings. It becomes too much. Memories of sensation remind them of everything they will never have again. Life goes on without them and they are made spectators to it. Watching them suffer, sharing in their futility, accepting that no amount of good deeds can change the past and give them a better future, those are the lessons they instill in their part of the rehabilitation process. It's not about them. There is nothing they can come away with which can affect their lives." Sensing perhaps further argument, Ella raised a pointed finger for silence and pulled open a drawer to the right of her chair. Whatever was in there, she had brought for just this purpose. Taking it out, she leaned across and offered it to John. It was a plain black, plastic disk with the name ' _Watson, J. H._ ' inscribed on it. John didn't take it; didn't want it. It was an apple he didn't care to bite.

"This is you, John. If we turned Sherlock off and loaded this card instead, there would be a fully functional hologram of you with memories as far back as you can remember. He's from your trial when they searched your memories for evidence of your guilt." She turned the disk over in her hand, finding his reluctance to touch removed from her insistence he hear. "If we destroyed this disk, would we be killing John Watson? Are you and this disk of equal weight in the discussion of what is life? Which one of the two would have to die for John Watson to be dead? Both of you? One of you? Which one?"

John stared at the disk with horrified fascination, not able to speak and unwilling to think about the equal existence that resided inside that plastic sheath. It was him. It was him and capable of being as real as Sherlock was now in a world in which John still existed. But there could only be one definitive version of himself. And the definitive version of Sherlock-

"Sherlock Holmes is dead. Nothing either of you is doing can change that. His hologram has lasted longer than anyone ever thought but I believe that is in part because of this fantasy you have both created and which he still pursues. He believes he has a reason to exist and you allow him to exercise that. To what end, though, John? How long will you play along just to ease his despair? The kind thing to do is to let him go. He's done all he can for you. It's time to accept that."

John hadn't had a panic attack in years but he could feel one clawing at his insides, driven by the thought of Sherlock's death as though somehow it were new. The black disk was far more haunting than any exsanguinated corpse could ever be, though. That was what his Sherlock looked like. Not slim lines and a cocky grin but black plastic and block lettering. And like staring at the gallows, the one she held was him. He wanted it gone. He wanted it destroyed. He'd stomp it to pieces in a heartbeat to wipe out its existence as another form of himself. But only his. He had that right. When it came to Sherlock, he did not. "If Sherlock wants to be turned off, that's... that's one thing. But I won't do it. It has to be his choice. I can't make it for him. I can't."

Ella frowned and put the disk away, closing the drawer on an item John could not unsee. "You can't save the life of the man by maintaining the existence of the machine," she warned.

John nodded, not caring what she said, so long as he could attempt to deny the existence of the little black, printed disk.


	14. Chapter 14

Reporting in for only his second shift in as many months was harder still than any day John'd spent in his solitary cell. He used to have all the time in the world to think about things. Now, when he felt most confused, it seemed he hadn't even a moment left for himself in which to rest his thoughts and worry his heart over things left pending in his head. He still hadn't seen Sherlock.

One of the food service machines on E deck was producing less than health-conscious meals. John's day was full of patients complaining of stomach bugs, with enough cases of vomit and diarrhea to keep him running to the sink to wash his hands, popping a few vitamin supplements during his break to keep from catching what the less than sanitary men were surely spreading. Being busy kept his mind focused on other things but left the rest of him stuck with a self-contained illness of anxiety that road on the back of every forced smile and considerate nod he granted. He could feel it in his fingers when he tried to hold a pen and in his knees when he tried to stay sat. It was funny how one could feel exhaustion deeper than even their bones and still be caught in a sustained pause between the decision to fight and the want to flee. When Sergeants Peters and Jones told him it was time to go back, John was only too happy to set his coat in the hamper and be escorted back to B deck, his altered-mass cuffs set just high enough that his shoulders' slump was even more pronounced. Dignity was only worth so much when standing in a lift with armed men already announcing to the world how much trouble you could be. John slunked more than walked back to his cell door, only piquing at the intermittent sound of Sherlock ordering something to stop and proceed as the two men let him in.

Sherlock looked up from his seat at the table where he'd been looking down at a tablet viewer set flat on the glossy top. Both palms were pressed flat to either side--he'd been quite intent in his own world of perusing. John held his stance near the door, not sure if he was smiling or not, as he waited for the guards to lock him in and set the cuffs back to zero. It only took a moment, one which Sherlock shared as though John's holding position near the door was a pregnant pause for his dissection. His silver eyes took him in head to toe in a slow rake, repeated twice with the second closer to a glace. The corners of his lips pulled in with reluctant acceptance as he turned away and looked back at his screen, granting a simple, cursory sigh. "You forgot to mention you were coming down with something," he said, no longer watching as John moved with freedom away from the walls and closer to him.

He was glad they were speaking. John hadn't been sure. It would have been petty but still, one never knew. He pulled up a chair opposite, sinking into the hard seat with his own deep breath of relief. The room smelled stagnant--not metallic and overly sterilized as it did in the medical bay. John probably smelled of ozone. He'd long since stopped noticing if he did. "I'm not sick," he said, though his head protested that his diagnosis was premature. "I don't think I am, anyway. Just... rough day."

"You look like hell."

John smiled a little, nodding as he propped his elbow on the table and let his chin come to rest in the well of his hand. "Yeah, I'd say that sums up the feeling as well."

Sherlock frowned at him, obviously having hoped for something more. He let it go, though, and did so without the slide of disappointment clinging to his stoic face. His eyes were warm under the pitch of his brows and they fell quickly when met by John's stare. He gestured with his chin to the bunks set within the wall. "Get some rest," he all but ordered, hands ghosting at the sides of his tablet screen. He couldn't exactly take it with him and leave John to rest but the expression seemed to still read that he intended to give John some peace.

Though he'd only just sat down, John nodded and forced himself back up, eyes searching the other surfaces in the room for something he wanted very much to make time for regardless. "Want to get a chapter in first?" he asked, finding the novel against the corner of Sherlock's bed where last he'd sat to hold it.

Sherlock's eyes wrinkled with a silent laugh, his cheeks rounded at their lofty pitch. "You don't have to apologize, John."

"I'm not," he lied, flipping through the pages towards the dog-earned mark they'd left. "Are you going to?"

"No," he said. "I didn't do anything wrong either."

And that, he supposed, was true. John peeked above the printed words, watching Sherlock's profile as he continued to sit with his face turned towards the table. Quiet. He wasn't generally this quiet. He probably would have much preferred to sit and watch the video files that Lestrade had delivered to him than be treated to a tired roommate who needed time to rest. No, not roommate. It was still a cell with only one person in it no matter what John thought or what he believed--neither of which felt solid anymore. His stomach ached not from lack of food but from dissonance. He sat on Sherlock's bed, body filling in the wrinkles where they tended to gather along the lines of his backside and legs, and let his eyes fall closed on the book in his hands as he envisioned something more in its stead. Something black and thin with white lettering on it that had haunted him all through the day. He took a deep breath--if not now, then when?--as he pushed his way up from the silence. "I saw a hologram disk today," he managed to say as repressed thoughts tumbled back into order.

"Really?" John didn't even have to see Sherlock to know the way in which his face would move, the height of his brows and the level of his chin that always came with that particular tone to his voice. "Mine?"

John shook his head. "Mine," he answered, and licked his lips to still a stutter. "Look, uh...I don't think of you as lesser than me. When I look at you, I see a person. When I saw my name on that disk, though, all I saw was an enemy." He opened his eyes, watching Sherlock's intensely focused stare that promised his full attention. He was turned in his seat, fingertips resting in a prayer at his lips. He was eager to listen, and John was hopeful in speech. If anyone could understand, it was sure to be him. John swallowed. "It, um... You know that... visceral feeling when you see something and it's just wrong? That disk was just a holding cell for an imposter able to pose as me, mimic me, but that could never, ever be me. I don't want it to exist. And you... no matter what I think when I look at you, you're more like it than you are like me. You're a black disk about this big with 'Holmes, S.' in white print. And I don't know how to reconcile you being the same things when one of you fills me with revulsion."

Sherlock nodded, his lips puckering on an idea before he let his hands fall from his face and clasp beside his knees. "I think that's probably normal. No one likes to have their identity challenged. As it stands, you deal with asserting your identity against accusation every day. A great deal of what has gotten you this far has been your personal convictions. No one wants to see themself as redundant or be made to compete with their own accepted existence." He shrugged, leaning back in his chair with an offer of openness in his far-away grin. "In that way, you're much smarter than I am," he said, gesturing to the imagined self that no longer existed but could be supposed to stand at his side. "In my life, I would have envied a hologram. Not having to eat, not having to sleep, never having to worry about illness or injury or any other limitations a body places on my ability to pursue my work. I would have looked at that disk and mourned my own wasted potential." His smile faltered for a moment as he raised one hand and moved it though the table, his arm disappearing past the pressed sleeve of his black suit jacket into the gunmetal grey surface. When his smile returned, it was bitter and disappointed, illuminated by a farsighted gaze that reflected unfavorably on the past. "Be careful what you wish for," he mused without humor.

Ella's words echoed in John's mind with that self-deprecating smile.

"I can tell you the atomic weight of any element and read and relate chemical compounds and reactions at a glance. I know the native locations of nearly all flora in my hometown and areas stretching out about fifty miles in every direction. I have filed away a million details which were all fascinating and potentially useful to me in the past when considering my future. But I never thought to remember the way the rain smells depending on the season. I don't remember if I could feel it in my nose when I hummed or recall the texture of my teeth against my tongue. Everything my body could do, I took for granted. It didn't matter to me. And I lost it." Sherlock's smile was completely gone now, replaced with solemn concern and certainty. John hoped that wasn't the end of it; hoped there was something more for him to say that offered some observable solace in being a hologram. Instead, he seemed to pin John in place with his piercing eyes that offered no reflection. "Stay afraid of death, John. Hate the idea of becoming like me. Despise all options that offer anything less than life. You're right to feel repulsed."  
John choked on a swallow, licking his lips to guard them. "Would you rather be turned off?" he asked.

Sherlock shook his head. "No."

"If it's bad--"

"It's not as though I'm stuck here," he interjected, a dangerous smile once again lingering in the corner of his full lips. "People read books all the time for the simple joy of living vicariously through others. Words paint pictures and describe the world in ways I can almost feel. I don't care about the story so much as I do the world the characters live in. I want the rooms described to me with taste and smell and textures explained in similes."

John startled himself with a simple laugh, his hands flexing along the easily bent pages of the book still held in his hands. "Ella thinks it's the case that keeps you going," he admitted, not wanting to add in the phrasing that she thought it was him--his fault and his burden to supply.

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "Classic example of confusing means as motive," he said, standing up and walking closer to take his rightful seat at John's left side. Talk was over as far as he seemed concerned. It was time to get his deserved reprieve of murders in darken alleys moist with mold and rooms that reeked of cigar smoke and brandy with chairs of smooth, polished leather.

Life wasn't like the books they read, though. Not every good guy was a hero and evil hid so easily in plain sight. "What if I'm the accomplice?" John asked, one last thought clinging on to the back of his skull after a day of trying not to let his mind wander. "What if no one framed me? Just... blackmail, guilt and repression."

"Then I think you might owe me two chapters tonight," Sherlock said, gesturing down to the book he could not read.

John folded it open but his eyes remained on him. "You'd forgive me? Even for that?"

"John, I'm hard-pressed to think of anything I wouldn't forgive you for. Take it for what it's worth and don't make me explain. You know better than I can articulate, anyway."

He nodded, smiling though his eyes pinched and stung with everything the day had brought and the hologram had tucked away. He pushed back until his shoulders hit the wall and rested his head against the cool metal as Sherlock leaned in to view the page. "I owe you two chapters anyway," John said, leaning his head in close to the body that wasn't there, wondering vaguely in the space before their story returned what Sherlock would have smelled like if he'd really been sitting there.


	15. Chapter 15

John dreamed of the war in an alignment of metals--heavy, cold and unfeeling. A periodic table of sensation listed in boxes that had no measure for their weight. The air was steel, ionized by energy blasts and sharper than a heavy sniff of ozone after a lightening storm. Vivid and harsh like a brillo pad, it raked against the sinuses. It felt like light looked once reflected off the surface. Blood was and always would be copper. Like sucking on a penny, the metal flavor flooded the mouth in rivers of red with clots to be choked on and spat to the floor with the viscosity of snot. It oozed, it didn't pour. Drowning with the source within. Iron was the Silumants that had no heart and stood like armored titans to war without mercy against the passions of men. And men, men were graphite, because so many went out to fight mistakenly believing themselves to be lead.

Their brittle points ran dull as battles ran on until at last each one became broken.

The only thing that didn't stink of refined ores was the charcoal smell of burning flesh. Doctors fused incisions and lacerations back together, a marriage of fire that melted separate pairs into a forced union above the severed mess inside. Blasters divorced arteries, muscles and limbs. War was loud and echoed with screams of torment. War was part of every sense they understood, an all encompassing void of verity that had made the mint flavor of toothpaste the highlight of the day. War was an eternity spent among the stars with no day and no night to relieve them from the endless barrage of tireless monsters clamoring at their hull. It was a glimpse of hell into which one faced the truth of one's own self. In hell there were indeed victims but there were demons there as well. Not everyone was truly burdened by their task--some of them were there to enjoy it.

John was a two-faced devil in his dreams that hated the death but relished the kill, mourning those who lost their fight with the same breath that asked for more to try, to feed the machine, to prolong the conflict indefinitely until they blocked out the sun in blood and debris. John's horns grew with each day's challenge, tail long and spined and dancing behind him like a gambler's tell. Air was thin but blood was thick and he sucked and licked each of his fingers clean to relish in the expenditure of what truly made them human. At night he'd regret but in the day there was no mourning. The forges of war were smelting them all, refining them into something awesome through the terrors they faced that burned like a fire more powerful than any sun.

And they took him away. There was an anvil waiting to reshape him, and a craftsman unlike any other standing with his tools. John had seen the worst of what the forge could bring and been taken out and left to cool as a lump of waste unfit for the final stage. Life without was sunlight and birdsong and cool spring fountains of crisp, clean waters. There were no fires there. John had been left to rust and decay, returned from Hephaestus as unfit material with no say and no hope to return. 

But he could still breath the steel air on a vessel and taste the copper blood on his lips. War raged on all around them as a force that existed apart from themselves but there were battles still in life to be fought. Or made. Death was not contained to war alone. Any man could die but it took a special man to kill. A devil of a man. John's horns were thick and sharp.

Slitting the throat was not enough, he needed to taste it, to drink in the taste of war. Licking his hands clean, the blood was cold by the time it reached his lips, no longer subtle in its flavors, gone stark and stale. He looked to the bleeding wound and placed his tongue there instead, feeling the pulse of the dying heart in the rush of blood that flowed into him. So good. He could feel the hands of his patient not stabbing at him to stop but dragging at him to continue, pulling him in closer, welcoming him between parted thighs. John's own skin broke as dark wings stretched out, claws replacing hands, pale skin turning to ashen scales. Sex was life and sex was death and he rolled his hips as the bringer of both. His tongue ran along the edge of the mortal wound, darting inside, dragging trails of the parting life essence in a sinuous lick from neck to cheek like a beast.

He knew the wound he kissed. He didn't need to see the face, didn't need to feel down the stretch of the naked body to know to whom it once belonged. It belonged to him now. Nothing else mattered. The shudder in the thighs hugging his hips, the rasp of a hollow moan soaked through in an expiring gurgle, moments of ecstasy prolonged in the quandary of expectations and then... and then quiet. Stillness. Blood no longer spurted but instead simply spilled, running like a river into the oceans, pooling into still corners and concave valleys of flesh. Wings retracted into tired bones as skin softened back into caring hands that lacked the talons that cut. And John rose up, spent but restless, to devour one last time the sight of the angel he'd gleefully brought to ruin.

John did not wake up with a full-body start but rather a wide-eyed stare that watched without focus as the world revealed itself to be true. His heart wasn't racing. His breath was not caught. He wasn't laying down flat in his top bunk but sitting uncomfortably perched against the wall on the bottom bunk's normally unused mattress with a book caught around the length of his thumb. At the table, looking down at the tablet display, Sherlock sat with focused attention at his own task at hand without care or curiosity spared the quietly awoken man.

"Stop," the hologram whispered in command to the computer, details of programmed physics causing his hair to hang in messy curls close to his eyes.

John bit hard into the vulnerable flesh along the inside of his bottom lip as his eyes skewed closed to vanquish the lingering horrors of the night-terrors that carried the taste and smells of death with far too realistic detail.

Work was meant to be a reprieve.

"Aren't you that bloke who killed Sherlock Holmes?" a man asked, holding on to his arm as he stood beside the gurney, eying Peters and Jones with mixed surprise and fascination.

John forced a small smile. "That's what they say," he said. "Please have a seat so we can see about that arm."

The medical bay was an open area with private rooms by need or request. John worked the common area where walls were lined in tables covered in blue upholstered foam and flanked by monitoring equipment for the less discreet check-ups, accidents, and injuries. Joseph Kerry wouldn't be the first patient to prefer to wait until one of the other attending physicians was free-not the first but still not among many. It was amazing how few people cared to remember the face of a man and his crimes. John was old news by now and Sherlock even more so. But not, apparently, for Second Technician Kerry. John had murdered one of his own ilk after all. His beige uniform with the designation on his badge was as easy for John to single out as a pair of armed guards were for everyone else.

The younger man eyed John with worried contemplation, bottom lip sucked up behind the bite of his teeth. Another glance to the guards seemed to settle his nerves for him, though. He took a seat on the padded table and held his wounded arm out with only the knit arch of mild worry still clinging to his brow. "It got caught," he explained, holding his arm out with the aid of the other.

John nodded and inspected it as he should. Just a sprain, nothing too server, though the skin was red, bruised and swelling. Overall nothing interesting. Nothing much. "Looks like you've got a sprain," John said out loud, stepping away to grab a roll of elastic bandage and a blue canvas sling to accompany. "Nothing much we can do, I'm afraid. I'll wrap it and get you set with some pain medication but really the best medicine is going to be giving it a rest and maybe icing it a bit to help the swelling."

Kerry nodded, watching him as he moved, his brown eyes still pensive in their stare. "I've seen Sherlock's hologram walking about with the DI. Looking at my machines," he said, as though they were sat down to drink rather than sitting in the medical bay where not a single word was shared in private. He seemed less interested in his arm now that John was tending to it, not even bothering to watch his hands move the roll across his skin as he stared into John's face instead. "I knew him. Sherlock. They gave him my shit assignment after he pissed off our superiors. They reassigned him there as punishment for mouthing off."

"I see," John said, encasing his right arm in the flesh-colored bandage with a silent prayer that that would be the end of the conversation. It was unlikely but worth sparing a hope towards. He felt raw inside his head and memories only made him feel ill; pockets of rot spoiling in his stomach with the taste of bile and eggs.

If Kerry had a sense for his disinterest, he didn't act on it. "He wasn't a very nice guy but... well, I guess you'd know. You _did_ kill him, right?"

John tried not to smile as he pinning down the edge of the roll, eyes averted as he picked up the sling by its sleeve. "Worried he might still be alive?" he asked, not sure why there was so much effort in the joking bedside manner he displayed.

"More like worried there might still be someone out there trying to kill other people," the technician admitted, shoulders rolling on a contained shudder as he navigated the non-verbal cues to move and allow John to slip the sling's strap over his head. Looking side to side, Kerry remained ducked conspiratorially, as though beckoning John to partake of something secret. His voice was cast low but the tone was still high, a worried tenor a few scares from a squeak. "First Sherlock dies, then our machines start getting people sick, now today the engine restarts on the machine I'm servicing and damn near twists my arm off. Plus, why's the DI out there in the first place if they think they've got their man?"

John nodded, doing his best not to meet the other man's eyes. "Do you feel afraid for your life?"

"I don't know what to feel. All I know is that the last guy who worked my shift got himself killed and things haven't exactly gotten better since then." Kerry raked his good hand through his hair while John tightened the line of the sling to ensure the arm rested with the appropriate bend. His swallow was audible as he filled the pause with pregnant observation. "You don't think maybe the sprain is worse than you think?" he asked, the lilt closer to a leading statement as he eyed the blue canvas sling. "You know. Like... nerve damage or something? Something that might get me discharged on Triton once we dock?"

John's brow scrunched into his hairline on a mocking frown. "You want a doctor's note so you can go AWOL, hm?" He shook his head, his smile returning as he crossed his arms over his chest. "Much as I would love to abuse my power, it really is just a sprain. If you're worried about things, let the security detail know, but I think what you've got here is more a case of bad luck and faulty circuitry than attempted murder."

It was obviously not something that hadn't gone unconsidered. The technician nodded, sighing somewhat wistfully as he pulled his lips thin, the corners pulling briefly into his cheeks before setting his face into relaxed acceptance. "Yeah. Thanks, I guess. All the same... I think I'm done. Come Triton, I'm out. Worry about my wages with the MWMC later." He slid down off the table, still compelled to cradle his hurt arm even as the sling hugged it close. He winced slightly at the jostling of feet landing back on solid metal, a flick of his gaze startling itself to retreat from his stare in a rushed, nervous glance. He cleared his throat. "Level with me, doc. Did you kill him? Is it all really okay?"

To say the killer was still loose was to open an avenue for panic. To claim guilt was too close to the worry of truth. John exhaled slowly, hearing it whistle through his nose as his dry throat constricted on the thickness of a lie.

"John?"

John turned his head, finding Sarah walking closer with a tablet in her hands, nails painted lavender to match the lining on her eyes. "If you're finished with Mr. Kerry, do you think you could help me with something?" she asked.

"Yes, fine," John replied. With a hastily scratched prescription and a short and hurried goodbye, John excused the second technician with no further words said on the subject of murders and misfortune. The other man seemed sheepish in his slouched retreat, shoulders rounded at his ears as he left like a man chastised. Perhaps he was better at reading the situation than John had given him credit for. Sarah's apologetic smile was more than enough to get the gist of what had really caused her to interrupt.

"You'd think you were back on trial," she said, smiling brightly with her heroic feat. John would have indeed thanked her if she weren't already rather assured of her good deed. She bumped his arm with her shoulder, jostling him with comfortable ease. "Everything alright?"

John nodded. "Yeah. Everything's fine," he said, though a fleeting thought caught to his tongue with reason still to mention. "Sarah? When Tim said he was leaving... he did say Titan, right? Not _Triton_?"

She frowned thoughtfully for a second, hands falling to her hips as she leaned back with a posture of contemplation. "Actually, I'd thought he'd said Triton. But I must have misheard. Easy to do."

John breathed and smiled, nodding once more, grasping at straws to a withering claim of innocence.


	16. Chapter 16

Sherlock being frustrated was by far the hardest thing for John to witness. No matter how small the initial matter, it mounted easily to become a near breakdown every single time. It wasn't always enough to be able to vicariously experience the details of one living life. Sherlock wanted to touch things, and at times he wanted to hurl things. The limitations of a body made of light were often more pressing than any narrative of experience could appease. John had stopped even asking what it was that had set him off, knowing whatever it was he was still mad at was not the thing that initiated a tantrum. Sherlock lived an existence in which termination was a mercy. It was something they were both coming to realize in tandem with their joint desire not to let it happen anyway. So John let him shout and storm about without any attempts to calm or make it better. It wasn't going to ever be any better. And he had every right to be angry because of it.

John let him have his tantrums without comment or noticeable attention spared. And when he was done, they carried on like it hadn't happened. Theirs was an easily adhered to a system of unspoken acknowledgment and respectful ignorance. They both liked the lie that said everything was okay.

"What happens to you when the ship returns to Earth?" John asked, sitting at the table with a tray of food in front of him, stabbing at cubed vegetables that sat soaked in a bath of salted butter and their own sweat. "Do you get transferred with me to a different prison?"

Sherlock had taken to sitting calmly in the seat across from him and seemed to roll his eyes with the question as he waited in observation like a handsome grotesque. "Bleak statement. You think we'll fail to catch the true killer?"

"Not necessarily. Just... want to know where you go. I've seen what a hologram disk looks like so I know you're portable. Even if they were to turn you off, what would they do with the disk?"

Sherlock shrugged, forcing an air of indifference as his eyes drifted across the room. "Record over it, I imagine. It's expensive technology. Only reason a mining vessel even has one is because the cost of a hologram system is cheaper in the long run than messy workers' compensation suits. Any further use they can get out of it is a bonus, really."

"And you called my thoughts bleak," John chastised, trying not to lose the remnants of his limited appetite to feelings of disgust on top of unease. Topics like these were almost guaranteed to be unsettling to some degree, though. He couldn't really ask the questions he wanted to ask--not without some manner of warranted confusion. He would buy Sherlock if it was just a matter of money. He would steal him if he was something he couldn't afford. But it made it sound as though he were an object, which technically he was and only figuratively, essentially, was not. John hadn't found the way to word his intention nor been able to explain to himself the inevitable answer to the question ' _what then_?'. What became of liberated holograms? What did they do? What was there _for them_ to do? Sherlock never spoke about anything but the case at hand or other current affairs. He spoke about the past in annoyance and regret. He ruled out the possibilities of a future in his own omissions of speech and John couldn't help but wonder if maybe Ella was right about more things than he gave her credit for.

It was selfish, of that much he was certain. It would have been a wonderful sentiment to wish Sherlock an existence regardless of how it was spent but John was not naturally altruistic. He didn't want Sherlock to just be existing out in the universe somewhere. He wanted him to be with him. John wanted to know what life was like with Sherlock as his companion, to see what he could see in a world unlimited. It really would be just like purchasing a human being; there was a sense of ownership he wanted and could not pretend did not exist. So he didn't ask. Asking would lead to other things being asked. John simply waited with hope masked in the upset stomach of realistic expectations for a sign Sherlock wanted to be carried away like a damsel in distress in the fairytale where John was exonerated. Or if he only wished to find peace in the fruition of his final case and awaited his termination as a well-earned release.

John nommed on pressed meat patties and washed down the savory, artificial flavors with stale water that tasted as though it were sucked through wood pulp. He did his best to ignore the fever behind his eyes that stretched down like a moist warmth to his palms. "You really think you'll be destroyed once we get back to Earth?" he asked around a mouthful of beans, feeding into a conversation that might yet hold some clues to the hologram's final wishes.

For all his ability to read a situation, though, Sherlock was often proven to be less than proficient in the reading of a friend. "No," he said without any spark of personal interest. "But then, I don't think this ship is going back to Earth."  
John frowned, fork stabbing into the formed mince. "Why's that then?"

"As I said, if Dr. Grable was planning on leaving, whether it was Titan or Triton, then there is something big coming that only not being on the ship keeps him safe from."

"That's just speculation. Just because Sarah can't remember which one he actually said doesn't mean we're all back to agreeing he's the man who framed me and helped kill you," John felt pressed to remind him.

Sherlock quirked his left brow, eyes chartreuse with a hint of grey. "You still believe he had no motive, then? That there was nothing going on between him and Dr. Sawyer?"

"I believe Sarah. I know her better than you do. She didn't cheat on me."

Though a reprisal of the argument seemed imminent, Sherlock's lips pursed on a thought rather than ran wide in condescension. "Perhaps it wasn't reciprocated, then," he mused, fingers closing in a steeple in front of his chin. "Dr. Grable worked closely with her every day; it's possible he developed a one-sided romantic desire. He sees her with a jerk like you, someone who takes her for granted, and wants you punished not because you're the competition but as revenge for not treating Sarah the way he wanted to be able to treat her. Almost works better that way, actually. Most doctors have an instinctual desire to play the role of the hero. Could be he saw framing you for the murder he assisted in as an almost karmic act to balance out his own guilt."

It was hard to ignore the sting with every insulting description--true or not--but hardly wise to object to his point. Could Tim have had a crush on Sarah? She was a beautiful woman, one of only a few hundred on board. Someone he worked with almost daily as a fellow GP. John put his fork down, his own hands coming to clasp in front. "Yeah, okay... That's still entirely based on speculation but.. yeah, I can see that. Still doesn't tell us what happened to you, though."

Sherlock shrugged. "No. My killer was smarter than the man who framed you. We're not going to simply stumble upon the answers by the same methods of waiting out deductions to be proven possible."

"No. No, I guess not," he admitted, and felt the momentum of the moment fall flat as he once again eyed his food. Sherlock was indeed the smartest man John had ever had the fortune to meet, but even he couldn't pluck answers from the ether. There was a small consolation in knowing, though, that if he did indeed spend the rest of his life in prison, that he had reasonable doubt to cling to that let him maintain plausible deniability into the realms of his own guilt. If he wanted to, he could blame Tim. If he needed to to maintain sanity. He'd grown accustomed to the idea that innocence was far too far fetched to hope to be proven. He was almost comfortable in his culpability. The rest of the world might not have known his personal demons but there were darker places than a prison cell John felt the likes of himself could be found. He might not have been guilty of killing Sherlock Holmes but he could hardly call himself an innocent man.

There was something in that thought, something about an understanding of oneself to be greater than that or a stranger, that made the ill presence in John's chest subside to a lighter shade of dread. He felt stupid and brilliant all in the same instance, his mind warring between the two as he stared across at Sherlock's curious stare that watched him with due countenance.

"Oh my god," John stammered as a single idea wound itself into avenues of thought. "Oh.. my god, Sherlock... We heard it. We heard it over and over again and we missed it. We missed it every single time."

"What are you talking about?"

John felt his bones shaking under his skin as he placed both hands flat on the table. "You're Second Technician Holmes," he stated.

Sherlock's nose wrinkled at the obvious. "And?"

"And Second Technicians are nobodies. Me, Ella, Lestrade, Sarah, absolutely everyone has doubted you to be as clever as you are because you're the lowest rank on this ship. We both assumed the murderer would have known you were clever because of all the precautions he took but that's just it--he wouldn't have known. You have no friends, everyone who knew you knew you to be a smart-arse. And I bet so did your murder. That makes you the smartest man in the room when he killed you. And I'm pretty sure you knew that." John licked his lips, skin moist though his mouth felt dry. "Do you remember the first thing you said to me when you came online?"

Sherlock was already sitting straighter, his posture uncomfortable as his mind whirled behind his sharp eyes. He pulled his chin in close to his neck, sinking back into himself like a startled crustacean. "Not the exact words, no," he admitted, looking annoyed that he was not yet following where John seemed set to lead him. "I remember being surprised that you had been pegged as my killer."

"But not surprised you were a hologram. Why?"

His brows furrowed more deeply. "I'm familiar with certain trends in law enforcement and sentencing as it relates to my hobbies. Also, there was a waiver to sign in the employment contract releasing the right to utilize a hologram of myself for a verity of purposes in the event of death or incapacitation. You do read things before you sign them, yes?"

John ignored the defensive jab, his mind on fire. "No. Shut up. Look, you told me not that long ago that when you were alive, you wouldn't have seen a holographic existence as a lesser state of being."

Sherlock's shoulders seemed to fall in as much as his neck appeared to lengthen. "You think I chose to become like this?" he asked, his tone affronted though in his eyes John could see the swirling smoke of burning inspiration.

"I think you accepted it," John said. "I think you realized you could better catch the killer if you did as he said because then you could control the scene of the crime. You could leave yourself a clue and come back, as a hologram, to solve this."

"My badge," Sherlock muttered, skipping ahead, seeing the path John had seen and expanding it into a road.

John nodded, feeling his pulse in his ears. "It was the only thing you noticed as being out of place. What if you left it there on purpose?"

Sherlock nodded minutely, looking away with quickly darting eyes that seemed to follow illusions of paths linking thoughts and ideas into his carefully constructed deductions. "Lestrade and I have been up and down those halls and checked every machine," he noted, listing the faults first with the intention to let the virtues of the idea settle them alone. He pressed his lips thin, chin dimpling. "Maybe it's not what I had seen but what I could have seen--a preventative measure to make sure I stayed out. The drug only affected short term memory, after all. We assumed the real clue would be innocuous and easily ignored but perhaps whatever's worth killing for is related to my level of access rather than anything I'd touched or looked at in the past if I did indeed leave my badge as a clue. Lestrade and I need to widen our scope."

"You think I might be right, then?" John asked, not at all used to the sensation of illumination.

Sherlock's smile was all at once several shades lighter than maniacal, the glee of new ideas subsiding to a more gentle pleasure before slowly slipping away altogether into a ghost of past enlightenment. He looked down at his lap, his smile perverting into a sardonic shrug at the corner of his lips as he took to a more self-effacing lark. "My largest failing, many times, is that I so often want things to be more complicated than they at first seem. And my own hubris blinds me to the obvious fact that I am...was... basically a nobody. What you've said reaffirms everything I know to be my own personal faults. Which only gives further excuse to follow up with it."

John watched him, feeling for him an empathy unfamiliar but welcome in the hollows of his heart. "Okay. Just one thing though. You are not now and have never been a nobody. Okay?"

The hologram's slow smile was a thing of unpracticed beauty. And it was, like all things, too perfect to last. In what seemed like an instant it was contorting into something blank but still closer to alarm, his eyes wider without the wrinkles of his smile. "John, your nose," he said, standing up out of his seat.

Feeling at his upper lip, John pulled away fingers tinted red, the pulse in his ears beating harder with painful strength against his eyes. He pushed up from the table only to find himself somehow on the floor with pain shooting up from the hip he'd fallen on and an uncoordinated stab of discomfort growing into agony in his head. His chest felt constricted on each breath as nausea finally filled his mouth with the taste of bile and the unmistakable flavor of blood.

John watched Sherlock panic at his own uselessness as though at a distance, frustration hardly seeming as appropriate description for the desperate attempts to help John up. He said John's name over and over again, the word losing meaning though its sound was a comfort. There was perverse pleasure in seeing Sherlock lose it--to watch his hands and arms disappear through his prone flesh with a ghost's touch, the whites around his eyes exposed as even the memories of the man brought to life through light seemed to tremble with vexation and fear as the blood in John's mouth seeped out across his cheek. He didn't much like the part of him that liked to see Sherlock terrified on his behalf. Maybe he would have liked to have been bought or stolen, though. Maybe he would have been okay with staying with him always.

It was okay, though. All things ended after all. Besides, whether he lived or died now was inconsequential seeing as they'd all be dead in a few weeks anyway.


	17. Chapter 17

There was no dreaming in the great black of John's unconscious mind. There was no sound nor feeling. No pain. What there was was pressure--on his head and on his chest. It reminded John of a shower, a steady beating that felt more like a constant push, absent of temperature and texture but there and constant and serving to calm the fear that he was dead. He was just standing under tepid water if he let himself believe it. Standing, waiting, pushing back as it pushed against him, and haloed in the light projection of another body surrounding his.

Even if he could believe in an afterlife and that someone like him could go there, there was nothing waiting for him. Nothing of value. So he pushed back against the pressure, standing his ground against a gentle tide, peaceful but not complacent as all things remained in darkness beyond his scope of care.

Darkness was an absence of light and all things must in time return. It came upon him like a sunrise with a slow peel of heavy sleep that did not startle his senses so much as awaken them. It was slow, slow, so slow and part of him itched for it to hasten. Once his mind had returned to a place of images and ideas, the lethargy in his body and inability to distinguish exact sounds amidst the cacophony of noise was an annoyance he could not brush aside. He could feel his fingers but they obeyed no orders, the same of which went for his lips and eyes. But growing on the horizon of consciousness was more than just a promise of life--it was a warning of pain.

By the time John could move his fingers, he could feel the cold beneath his fingernails and the scratchy texture of nylon straps. He could feel the stabbing discomfort of his throat and hear the hoarseness of past intubation. His eyes watered with the cough he regretted making, searching for water to soothe him though the table beside his bed offered nothing. He wouldn't have been able to have helped himself anyway; both his feet and his hands were tied down. That thought was not nearly as upsetting, though, as the ones that followed the observation that this was not one of the medical rooms on board the mining ship Endeavor 1.

And neither was he alone in a recovery room he'd never stepped into before.

"He should be fully conscious now but I would advise against questioning him," a man said, a doctor by the looks of him and made obvious by the way he inspected John's eyes for signs of awareness. His white eyebrows were remarkably thick with wisp-like tendrils curling up towards his hair.

The well-dressed woman in a black pencil skirt standing at the back wall only seemed marginally interested in what the doctor had to say, her attention drawn to a small device in her hand which she typed into with red painted nails. "We have no interest in speaking to him at this moment, just in ensuring he's not permanently damaged. I trust you are able to answer such questions without his immediate aid."

The doctor's face fell into an annoyed frown but he nodded none the less as he walked around the bed, checking readings from wall displays though all John wanted in the world was for him to bring him a glass of water.

"We did a full brain mapping as requested. The hemorrhaging caused by the viral infection does not appear to have done any lasting damage. Electrical readings suggest proper functionality in cognitive and processing centers of the brain. Hemorrhaging within the abdominal cavity was by far the more severe but I expect we are looking at a full recovery."

"And the cause of the infection?" the woman asked.

The doctor shrugged, his hands slipping into the pockets of his white jacket. "Undetermined. The ship reported some issues with their food systems, however, so I suspect it's a related incident. Luckily it was contained to just this one prisoner," he said, his tone lacking any hint of sympathy as though John had gotten what he deserved. He was a criminal, after all. A murderer. And John did not have to presume very much to imagine the man resented that in a fellow doctor. They'd both sworn to do no harm.

John wasn't so interested in the doctor, though. He knew why that man was there and what his interests were in his recovery room. The woman was another thing entirely. John had never seen her before.

Dressed in a smart black skirt and blazer with the lapels of a white, plunge button down folded over on top, she looked like the sort of person who got things done in some big corporate building and barked to lesser peons to go get her a caramel macchiato. Her nose was thin and her eyes sharp and she spoke to the doctor in orders rather than requests. Even when he answered her, she seemed more interested in the device in her hand, recording it possibly, or reporting. She exuded an atmosphere of being too busy for anyone and everyone but herself. She made John nervous as much as she commanded his attention. There was a worry in why someone like her would be standing in his room at a time like this.

He tried to speak, his mouth moving with inarticulate sounds of garbled syllables that were indistinguishable from the grunts of early man. The woman looked up at him then, though the doctor shook his head at his stupidity in the attempt. Pouring out a glass of water, the doctor stood with straw extended for John to drink. It was cold bliss as it trickled down against his sore throat and over all too quickly as the man took it back and moved it far out of reach. It was enough though. Just. Swallowing to try and further moisten his throat, John was glad to see he had the woman's attention. This wasn't something he was going to be able to repeat or project. "Where'm I?" he asked amidst a crackle of disuse.

She seemed to smirk just slightly, the corner of her red lips tugging on a dimple in her cheek. "Triton," she said. "This is Space Station Gamma. You were detained and quarantined a week ago when your ship passed through to refuel. Rather good news for me. Much easier to catch up with you when you're waiting stationary." Though she remained at a distance, the fact that he had her full attention made her seem much closer. When she did take two steps nearer to the bed, the click of her heels were pronounced like bad omens. She seemed to be the beauty of death personified. "We received documentation related to your crime when the Endeavor 1 was at Titan but were unable to mobilize in time to intercept you before the ship departed again. You're to be returned to Earth for re-sentencing. The office of the Grand Commissioner is not pleased with the way things have been handled on the mining ship which seems to put far more emphasis on their bottom line than in justice for the late Sherlock Holmes."

John couldn't agree more. But now really was not the time nor, it seemed, the place. "Where's the ship?"

Her eyes were once again glued to the screen in hand. "It's continued on," Death told him, as though it were unimportant and obvious a conclusion of thought.

"We need to stop it," he rasped, pulling against his left restraint as his hand tried to rise to soothe his throat.

The doctor, still standing in wait, gave an annoyed sigh and a shake of his head. "Really, I have to insist that this is not the best--"

Death put a hand out, the unspoken order immediately obeyed as she ignored the professional man. "Why do we need to stop the ship, Dr. Watson?"

For more reasons than one, John wished Sherlock were there with him now. He'd know the right words to say and it wouldn't be a convicted killer saying them. "Something bad's going to happen to it," he said, keeping it simple because that's all he had. "I don't know what but you have to believe me."

Death's thin smile returned. "I don't, in fact. But I do suggest that you enjoy your stay in hospital for now. It's the most luxury you'll likely ever experience again." There was an assurance in her tone that could turn water to ice and she turned to leave with her thumb still pressed against the screen of the flat device in her hand. She was leaving. It would be nothing but doctors and nurses once she left with perhaps the occasional security guard with instructions to not engage.

John had taken a shot to the leg in battle. He remembered vividly the feeling of acceptance when he'd felt sure that he would die. It was an all or nothing moment which he hadn't ever really experienced before. Fitting then that the second time he'd experience it would be in the presence, once more, of death.

"I'll sign a confession and name the mastermind behind everything if you just stop that ship," he said, tongue and voice working on their own accord while the part of him that valued self-preservation fumbled for the reigns.

Death paused a few short steps from the door, looking back over her shoulder at him with unmasked surprise. "The mastermind? An accomplice is still on board the ship?"

John shook his head, feeling a fool. "No. He doesn't want to be there when it happens," he repeated with a lie poised on the edge of his tongue which seemed more real the more he spoke. "His name is Joseph Kerry. He was a second technician. He had access to the engines and the cargo hold before Sherlock got punished and took his place. He told me he was getting off on Triton."

Her dark brows held sturdy on a thought, paused on the edge of disbelief and an uncertainty of unearned faith. Slowly, her attention returned to her tablet as she typed, prodded, and swiped at images and words that John could not from his prone position see. She shook her head. "There is no one by that name in the ship's dossier," she said, waiting for his reply.

John could not help but chuckle at his lack of fortune which only served to grant him unrequited certainty. "Of course there's not. Who uses their real name when they're planning to kill half a million people?" he thought aloud.

"Excuse me?"

"Well, wouldn't you die to save half a million lives?" he asked, knowing he could name at least one man who might have done just that. John's throat was positively screaming with pain but she couldn't leave until she knew. No matter what happened, this much had to be off his conscience at least. It was likely no one on the Endeavor 1 was looking for the answers still. "If the office of the Grand Commissioner is interested in justice for Sherlock Holmes, then you have got to get everyone off that ship. You can put me away for as long as you want, a day for every dollar spent, but don't wait for it to happen to understand what it is I'm warning you about."

Death looked down on him in quiet contemplation before adjusting her line of sight to the tablet in her palm. Her brows arched in a mildly surprised shrug. "He says to let you know he's interested in discussing these theories in greater detail when he arrives tomorrow."

John felt as though he'd missed something--not at all unfamiliar territory. "He? Who's 'he'?" he asked.

Death's reply came through a crooked, red smile. "Commissioner Holmes," the pleasant voice said, thumb typing again to the click of her heels as she excused herself without formality.

Feeling heavy against his pillow, John watched her leave and remained staring at the door once it had closed, knowing the name and the puzzle into which her parting words fit. It left him unsure if he was right to feel a shiver of fear or instead feel relieved someone was willing to listen. Death came for them all, after all, but John worried whether she had come to deliver him to a merciful being or to put him under the charge of the devil himself.


	18. Chapter 18

It was nearly impossible to sleep with a mountain of worries growing up out of John's chest. Tied to a bed, there was only pain-tinted restlessness to draw his attention away from concerns that had been a nagging presence for so long that they only seemed to suffocate him now. He'd always been somewhat preoccupied with Sherlock's ultimate fate. Their arrangement was temporary and subject to other people's wills and influence. No matter what his worries had been, though, he had only to look around the room and see Sherlock standing there to know that time had not yet come. There was nothing in his room now save for the equipment set to monitor his recovery. There was nothing there to tell him Sherlock was alright.

It was safe to assume he'd been turned off. John liked to think Lestrade would petition to have him kept on to assist in his investigation but even Sherlock had said they'd reached a dead end. Lestrade's insistence depended on whether or not Sherlock had had the time to let him in on the things they'd spoken about over dinner. And John doubted that. He doubted it very much. Because the last thing John could remember was Sherlock's frightened face and persistent shouting that demanded someone come and help him. Sherlock hadn't been thinking about the case, he'd been thinking about John. And in a way, that worried John even more. He wasn't all that good with technology; he didn't really understand how things worked. For all he knew, Sherlock was stuck in perpetual concern for him, needing to be rebooted or defragged or whatever they did to machines that couldn't go forward until the last open action stopped. He didn't want the last thing Sherlock felt before they switched him off to be a cocktail of loneliness and fear and wanted even less for that to extend into the darkness like a persistent dream. He had to get him back somehow. He had to get him off that ship. He hoped very much that the brother was the sort of man who was willing to believe in the value of hologram.

Sherlock only mentioned him in passing. He was the older, overbearing sort that fueled a desire to run away. John didn't know his name--never asked. He never really expected to meet the man, and certainly not without Sherlock there to set the record straight. They weren't exactly on a path to be considered the best of friends what with all records proving guilt without holding to reasonable doubt. John's fingers were crossed that somewhere in the transferred records there was some mention of what he and Sherlock had tried to do with Lestrade's continued support. No one would talk to him, though, since Death took her leave. No one bothered him at all unless by profession they were made to. It was a long night and only through the strength of medication did John get any sleep. Peace was another thing altogether, though. Of that he had nothing and expectations were slim and not forthcoming.

They sorted him out with altered-mass cuffs and a wheelchair in the morning and pushed him down to the loading docks for safe transfer away from the halls bustling with innocents. Death's heels clicked against the metal floors like a metronome keeping pace for suspense, her presence heard but not seen as she walked behind them, not permitting her back be turned to the enemy. She needn't have been worried. The cuffs against John's wrists and ankles were set high enough that his feet were numb and his fingers twitched slightly at the stress placed at the base of his hand. He hadn't a thought in regards to escape, all his mind set on what to expect from a commissioner of the World Congress when he'd grown so used to the politics of the space corps. His career focus in the military did not make him ignorant to government, however, and the name of the ship on the marquee above the loading dock gave him more than just pause as he reread it several times.

"The _Proteus_?" he asked, unable to keep his mouth shut as his jaw felt weighted with surprise. Even civilians knew that name. Bakers and plumbers knew that name. It was the ship of Lords, Prime Ministers, and Presidents. It was the castle of the stars.

Death's heels clicked and brought her forward, standing several feet aside from John's prison chariot. "As you can imagine, it's a time-consuming process to reroute the ship from its previously kept itinerary."

"They sent the Proteus after _me_?"

"Of course," she said, smiling with full knowledge that it should very well seem like overkill in coming to collect one already incarcerated man. It was a sign of power and of might. If they had wanted to intimidate John, they could have just kept him strapped to the wheelchair. This was more like giving him the participation prize in the big dick contest with prizes first through fiftieth going to every decorated man in uniform that lived within her hull. Overkill did not even come close when the leaders of the free world made a special detour to take care of the likes of Dr. John Watson.

He was fucked. In fact, they'd have to make a new word to fully encompass the degree of boned that this situation provided. Fucked was inaccurate a description and an overall optimistic view of future prospects. John and the entire crew of the Endeavor 1 were royally, and in all ways, Watsoned. So nice to leave behind a legacy.

They wheeled him onto the ship and let the soldiers posted inside take over as the orderlies and security detail from the Gamma space station stayed behind, lacking the pertinent clearance to gain entrance to even the dock-level facilities. John did his best to sit up straight and not sink into the chair with back arched and shoulders caving in around his ears in a hunch. He still had his pride even if he was very much out of his depth. In fact, it was almost easier to keep his chin up when he knew without a shadow of a doubt that every single person they passed thought he was the scum of the universe. May as well own it. Cowardice and self-preservation were not going to serve him in any manner other than with further defeat. He had recognition and had earned in some small ways their respect as a killer. So long as it belonged to him, he may as well use it. Besides, he was the one getting the free ride on the largest and most recognized starship in the known galaxy.

Death kept step alongside him, eyes always cast down at the palm-sized tablet in her hand. "Commissioner Holmes will be seeing you immediately. You are advised not to speak unless asked to and to keep your responses quick and to the point."

John nodded, his own eyes kept forward to maintain the mask of confidence. There were only soldiers in the halls, their insignia proudly displayed on the breast, collar and shoulder decals of their black uniforms. The white walls and floors almost seemed to sparkle with cleanliness and set them as stark blots against the scenery. He licked his lips, the skin still dry and nearly chapped after a week spent unconscious without anyone concerning themselves with a bit of balm. This was very much it--the now or never moment of his life that would serve as the fulcrum point of all other efforts. Lips splitting with a smile was not exactly a worthwhile worry but being rolled along in a chair left little else for him to consider other than the weight of everything else.

The room they took him to was large and paneled in wood or wood-like plaster. It didn't look anything like a room on a starship and John imaged that was more or less the point. The large oaken desk, the portraits hanging on the walls, even a chandelier hanging over a big red carpet under which sat sofa seating and some chairs. The only thing that betrayed the setting was the wall-length window that looked out into space in front of which stood a tall man of medium build in a business suit rather than the formalities of a uniform to place him among military ranks. The soldiers' pushing John's chair saluted respectfully and left. Not even Death remained as she followed them out with downcast eyes. The door slid shut behind them with hardly a sound and it seemed to John the room was darker than the hallways with the dim bulb centered among the dangling crystal spilling out in an unfocused array. The man at the window did not turn around immediately, though John could see the reflection of his face in the polished window surface. He was older than Sherlock--older by several years if not a decade. A receding hairline and tired, old eyes spoke of age and with it wisdom. There was a coldness to him, though, that warned against assumptions that any age could weather venom.

He did not turn as he spoke nor look back into the room through the mirror-like view of the stars. Instead he seemed fixated on a point far out of sight as he stood with palms clasped behind his back. "The Endeavor 1 has not responded to attempts at communication," he said. "Relay stations report that they are operational but the ship itself is not registering receipt of any transmissions."

John swallowed hard, throat still protesting but adrenalin surging to placate. "You believe me."

"We take threats very seriously, Dr. Watson," the older Holmes corrected, turning his face just slightly as though he could see through the corner of his eye to the far side of the room where John sat. "What did you do to the ship?" he asked, no question in his voice as to the guilt of his present company.

It was, perhaps, less than John could have hoped for but still far better than his track record could protest. "Nothing. It wasn't me."

"Then how did you know there would be issues?"

"Sherlock worked it out when he discovered that the man he assumed to be the accomplice in his murder had been planning to leave the ship," John explained, feeling as though he were reporting to his senior officer once more, lost in procedure but somehow satisfied with the return. This was one person at least that did not need to be convinced of Sherlock's genius. If there was anyone capable of believing him on faith alone, it was this man. John let that knowledge calm him, though adrenalin kept him sharp.

"The murderer, of course, being this 'Joseph Kerry' fellow?" Holmes asked leadingly.

John gave a few short nods, lips bit thin between his teeth. "Pretty sure that's him. Scan my memories and you'll see. You'll see everything. Sherlock and I have been working on this together. I just want to help him. Him and everyone on that ship if it hasn't already blown up or god knows what."

Holmes stood in silence, an almost unnerving lack of urgency in every movement, before he finally turned and walked away from the backdrop of stars to pace regally towards the desk a few feet away from John's chair. He didn't look much like Sherlock. His hair was lighter, straight and thin. His nose was pointed and eyes round. They shared an air of superiority, though, that removed any doubt in John's mind as to whom he was speaking to. Perhaps Sherlock took after their mother. He was certainly the prettier of the two.

"Sherlock is beyond help. We can only hope the same cannot be said for the rest of the crew," Holmes remarked as he continued to eye John with suspicion, the cold stare even more unnerving without the accompaniment of stars in shared view.

"Sherlock's there. He's just on a disk."

Holmes scoffed, his smile cruel. "That's not my brother."

It was an argument John was tired of losing and one whose outcome was almost improved this way. "Fine," he said. "You won't mind if I keep the disk, then."

The arch of Holmes' brow was nearly as amused as it was surprised as he leaned his hip against the desk, arms crossing over the breast of his brown three-piece suit. "I should think exoneration should be enough should your intel prove to be important. Let the dead stay dead."

"Yeah, sure, you do that," John said, somehow bolstered by the other man's amusement in the realms of his own beliefs. His hands clenched into fists against the arms of the chair they were strapped to. What consequences were there anymore worth being afraid of? "Your brother's dead and you can honor that. Great. But his hologram is the only Sherlock I've ever known. And he's my friend. And I don't want him to die any more than you wanted your brother to die. So I'd like it if someone would get that disk off that ship. It might not be saving a human life but he has every right to live."

Holmes' smile grew even bigger, the mockery of the expression hardly downplayed as he eyes maintained a level of hatred in their frozen glare. "You are being detained aboard the most prestigious ship in the fleet, confined in a wheelchair in the presence of a commissioner whose brother you are convicted of killing with no evidence to suggest otherwise. And you wish to demand you be awarded the last recordings of his memories?"

John set his jaw and stared back unflinching. "With all due respect, sir, your brother is the most unconscionable jackass I have ever had the misfortune of spending prolonged periods of time with. And I'd rather some things didn't change."

Whatever unasked questions had been formed in the commissioner's mind, they were drawn out in one silent, wide-eyed look of uncertain surprise and put the rest in the heavy fall of his shoulders as his whole body seemed to hang from his grief. There was a crack in the wall, a chink in the armor, and it was exposed with honesty. Yes, John knew Sherlock. Yes, Sherlock was every bit the same man in death as he had been in life. Yes, there was a reason to believe in the things John said; not just in the absence of a response from the Endeavor 1 but in respect for the faith his baby brother had placed in him. Holmes closed his eyes, taking a moment for himself to breath and swallow down the clot of pain in his chest. It wasn't an admission granted in the presence of a stranger. John had earned himself some measure of promotion in his blunt recounting of the man they both missed.

Holmes' looked down at his desk, eyes watching as his fingers smoothed over the wooden surface. "He was a very loving little boy," he said, though beyond the spoken words he said much more.

"I don't doubt that. He let himself be murdered just to have a chance to catch the man behind it all and try to save everyone on that ship--every single one of them someone who looked down on him. Should have been a tough decision to make. Evidence says it wasn't." John had to remind himself that hadn't known that man and that he had no reason to mourn him the way his brother did. His pain was a phantom ache in John's chest that gave a name to the worry of a feeling he didn't want to know just yet. "We save that ship and he died a hero. If we fail, he was just the first of many."

Holmes nodded, expression all too familiar as it lengthened on a sigh, showing glimpses of familial resemblance in more than just shared airs. "We'll be on our way shortly. We've sent scouters ahead in light of the communications issue. In the meantime, you're to be scanned. If Joseph Kerry truly is there in your memories, I want to see him. I want him found."

John was only too eager to submit to the procedure with the promise of revenge to keep should salvation fail. "And the disk?" he asked.

The brother waved aside the request as he pressed down on a call button built into the desk. "I believe you will agree that such procurement is entirely up to Sherlock," he said as the doors slid open with hardly a hesitation, the light from outside lengthening the soldiers' shadows as they approached to wheel the prisoner away.

It was as close to a straight answer John felt the man was capable of. And it sounded a great deal to his hopeful heart like a yes.


	19. Chapter 19

They pulled in over two hundred escape pods from the black endless sea of stars as the Proteus traced the scheduled trail of the silent Endeavor 1. None had been transmitting a distress signal and so none would have been found had the scouting ships not been alerted of their presence to the wailing of proximity alerts. It wasn't until the Proteus herself arrived within visual that the signals started coming in. Twenty or so vessels found by chance became over ten times as many now pinging with distress. Nearly half a million souls had been sitting quietly in space, not bothering to request for help until help had already arrived, and not so much as a scrap of hull to explain where their ship had gone as the Proteus spent hours pulling them in.

No one really seemed to know what was going on. Each docked pod offered the same story of ignorance as officials questioned why they hadn't been transmitting their distress: Simulants. Apart from that threat, they knew nothing. They were told only to abandon ship and wait in silence for as long as possible or else the only vessels they'd attract would be those of their would-be killers. As for where the Endeavor 1 was now, they had even less to say. They'd left her adrift, engines dead, days ago with rumors of a skeleton crew still aboard to do their best in the absence of hope.

Until Sargent Peters was brought in on the seventy-sixth recovered escape pod, all they'd had were the accounts of miners and craftsmen whose tales differed in details as to whether or not they'd been boarded or attacked before the mass exodus of the ship. Peters had been on the bridge for most of it, following orders under Lestrade for all of it. It was his testimony that Commissioner Holmes requested that council hear and his words that were recounted back to John once the formal hearing had concluded, decisions made. It wasn't John's place to know. He had no rights to the privilege of information. But he'd submitted his own memories for review and to the best of his knowledge the brother had indeed reviewed them. He felt more like a guest than a prisoner sitting in the other man's office again, perched in comfort on the edge of a comfortable sofa, still wearing the white bands but with no one there to engage them.

Holmes' recounting was efficient and to the point. Convinced John had been targeted due to their investigation, Lestrade had continued a sweep of Sherlock's old route and eventually discovered the crates of weapons stored in boxes labeled as food. On top of concerns of weapons trafficking, he was keen enough to realize the rouse meant there wasn't enough food on board for a return trip-that they were not meant to make it back. Criminal intent justly proven, the Captain agreed to turn the ship around. That was when the engines died, killing all non-essential systems. While standard protocol said they should have waited with all men aboard and a distress signal transmitting, advice from the ship's hologram proved convincing enough to garner the call for the complete opposite action. Holograms, it turned out, were not considered non-essential even on a mining ship. One could find its own captain returned as one, after all.

As Peters had explained it, Sherlock felt that any transmission from the Endeavor 1 would be used by their enemy to locate them and secure the payload. He was the one who wagered the accepting party in the transaction were Simulants. The weapons drop alone would have helped their cause and the ship itself would make for the perfect Trojan Horse to transport hundreds of thousands of Simulant warriors into the protected sphere of inner planets. The Simulants were waiting for them, Sherlock presumed, and they would be their first responders to a distress beacon. The best case scenario was to abandon the ship and scatter into space while a few remained behind to ensure the Endeavor 1 would be set to self destruct if an enemy fleet did in fact arrive. They would buy the others time and take out as many Simulants as they could if it came down to it--if no other help arrived. That had been days ago. The only reason Peters or any of the attending councilmen still believed that the mining ship was out there was because the recovered crew hadn't experienced any turbulence from the resulting sonic wave from an immense explosion which such recourse would create.

Which was where it became John's business to know what had happened and what could happen still. Which was why the two men spoke alone, away from the Commissioner's Lords and peers behind the closed office doors of his personal sphere of unattended influence.

"We're not pursuing her," Holmes said with a short glass of amber liquor held in his hand. "Not only would it be inadvisable for our flagship to enter into uncertain danger without the full accompaniment of front line destroyers, but we are currently burdened with over ninety-nine percent of the refugees from the missing ship. The potential loss of life versus the loss of property makes it an unwise gesture. The Proteus will return to the outpost on Triton while we await the arrival of the nearest battle fleet."

John nodded, not surprised and unable to argue. Part of him wanted to ask what ships were nearest; maybe he knew someone aboard them that he hadn't seen in a while. He'd served on the Capricorn and knew a few battle surgeons on the Lusca. None he cared to see, really. No one of consequence. Just a thought to carry him away from the deathwatch ringing in his ears. He licked his lips. "How long will that be?" he asked.

Holmes did not look at him as he titled his glass, liquid rolling along the slant. "Nearest estimates place it at five days."

Five Days. John let his face crack with an unfelt smile, the expression dying at his eyes. "They'll only still be alive by then if Sherlock got it wrong," he said, though there seemed little reason to assume the other man had. "They've already been out there long enough that whoever expected to collect those weapons is going to be looking for them."

"That is the grim reality of their situation, yes."

"So is this you breaking it to me gently?"

Holmes' brows lifted with minor assertion as he tipped back his glass till it too was empty.

This was not the way it was supposed to go.

John ignored the nagging voices that tried to console with tired insistence that claimed it as inevitable anyway. What was the point in obsessing over the fate of a dead man? Nearly everyone's life had been saved; what more of a result was he looking for? This was good. This was among the best outcomes imaginable to a problem that had only been believed as a possibility. Sherlock had been right and before the ship exploded, he'd have the pointless validity of the moment to put to rest a soul that was already at peace. No. He wasn't listening. John didn't care. It still wasn't good enough. There was still a ship out there with his friend on it and a high probability he'd never see him again--whether he was just a hologram or not. He'd stopped bothering with whether he was flesh and bone or focused rays of light. Sherlock was a friend. And he was in danger. And aside from that, John didn't much care. Nor was there anything he could do.

Holmes was unlike John in that respect. He had influence. He had power. And still he stood there, half leaning on his own desk, with an empty glass in hand. He'd already accepted his brother as dead and buried him away on his own. John hadn't. His Sherlock was still alive out there. For now. But there still existed not a single argument to excuse the risk of the Proteus for even one man, let alone a hologram. This was the end of the road, so to speak. This was as close as circumstance could carry him. John refused to look out the window into the vastness of space for the knowledge that he would seek through there a glimmer of the Endeavor 1 to fuel the disheartened part of him that never got a chance to say goodbye. He did not want to share in that remorse with the man standing in the room with him. They were better off cutting their association short if this was the only reason he'd called him in.

Holmes put his glass down on a coaster but kept turned in such a way as to keep most of his face obscured, only the proud straight lines of his back and shoulders presented instead with the facade of strength. The silence he held spoke of words waiting on his tongue and after further pause, he breathed in a short sigh and set to pacing towards the window John so obviously avoided.

"We're sending an armed shuttle to look for her," he said with hands clasped behind his back. "We can't help what we can't find and it will provide a far better means of escape than any remaining escape pods for the crew still on board with risks far lessened in recovering them. Peters reports four men still on the ship including the captain and inspector Lestrade among them. It is a shuttle, however; not a proper ship. It will not survive an encounter with a Simulant destroyer and will fair only marginally better than a pod against the effects of an exploding ship in close proximity. As such, this is a high-risk mission and is strictly on a volunteer basis. So, of course, I volunteered you."

John did not mind his presumption in the least, some part of him satisfied with the order beyond the need of personal request.

Holmes looked back with the ghost of a smile as he stood in mock attention with starlight to frame him. "As a convict, you are the most expendable person on this ship," he explained, his tone and words in dissonance. They both knew why John wanted to go; why the commissioner wanted John to be on that vessel. This was the soft sell, the further recount of an argument won. It did not seem to be in his nature to leave even the unnecessary out. "The pilot will be armed, of course, and the altered-mass cuffs will be active to ensure you do not attempt to hijack the vessel for your own purposes. Should you attempt to do so, deadly force will be permitted if necessary."

John nodded, not really caring beyond the part where he was going to be allowed to go back. "When do I leave?"

"The vessel is fueling right now and I'm assured at least one pilot from a nominated list will volunteer to accompany. Shouldn't be more than a couple hours."

"Do I need to sign anything? Do anything?"

Holmes shook his head. "You'll be briefed when the time comes and you may waive your rights then--such as they are. Though I feel I must remind you not to become distracted, John. The Endeavor 1 must be destroyed should Simulants arrive. While I do share in your interest towards the procurement of certain stored data, that is a secondary concern in this rescue operation."

More words John didn't really care about. "It'll be the first thing I grab," he assured him. "I won't leave the ship without it."

"Then know that the vessel I provide will not hesitate to leave without you." Holmes's statement was punctuated by a cold stare that warned far better than pretty speeches his final and true intent. This was really and truly a scouting and rescue mission. Should Simulants arrive before a battle fleet, it was part of his responsibility to make sure the four men left behind got as far away as possible before the ship exploded. Getting Sherlock off the ship would be a bonus achievement but was not an important detail to the success of the mission. Not to the detriment of the living. People, then animals, then technology. Holmes wanted to send the soldier with only the slight benefit of the man who cared about his brother. John was going because he knew the front lines from experience and had no future worth saving. This was tactical, not personal, or so he could defend at any rate.

John stood up from the sofa, hands clenching and unclenching at his sides as everything in him geared up to be ready to fall back in formation. "Understood," he said, and he did in all ways that mattered.

Holmes needn't have said any more than that he was going. One way or another, he was getting Sherlock off that ship.

True to his words, Holmes had John escorted to the docks within an hours time to the Victory-class scouting vessel Explorer 5 where Captain Haywood waited just as impatiently for their tour to be underway. With short, brown, buzzed hair and two discriminating brown eyes, John found her to be almost more intimating than either Holmes or his mouthpiece Death. While the others could certainly make his life hell, Haywood looked as though she could drop him out an airlock without a single lash beating in remorse. She was detached like a soldier, not unfeeling like a diplomat. John liked her instantly and felt his posture default to military as he was brought to stand before her.

"You're him, huh?" she asked, looking John over in a slow sweep from his regulation black boots, the borrowed fatigues bearing no class or distinctions, and the white cuffs which caused his steps to become more of a shuffle. Her brows quirked with slight intrigue. "You're the murderer?"

John smiled just slightly, shoulders arching on a shrug. "Well, I'm not perfect," he said as the guards saw him onto the scouter.

Haywood's chuckle as she boarded behind him was all John needed to hear in that moment. The guards moved to settle John in the passenger seating but she spoke up as they moved him through the small bay. "Nuh uh. Up in the front," she ordered. "They've got me searching for a ship that doesn't want to be found. I need every pair of eyes I can get."

Though the two men on either side of John seemed reluctant, neither voiced dissension. What they did was increase the mass of the cuffs as soon as John was seated to the point where his ankles and wrists both echoed in shared pain. Yeah, he got the point, they didn't want him touching anything. He occupied himself with looking all the same as the guards handed off the remote for his bonds to Haywood before finding themselves dismissed.

The pilot sat in her seat not far from John's, the remote held between her thighs as she let her fingers dance across the panels at her command. "Judging by the standard distance of travel an escape pod can go on ejection propulsion alone, we've got a haystack damn near the size of a light-year once you factor in your Xs, Ys and Zs. So keep your eyes forward and look out for any odd blank spaces out there because we're more likely to see it as a light-blocking obstacle than we are as an actual ship until we get close enough for it to pop up on the scanners," she ordered as the engines began their quiet hum and the view of the dock twisted around to show the path of their departure.

John nodded, flexing his fingers but too pleased to complain as pressure turned them cold and numb. "Believe me, I want to find it more than just about anyone else," he assured her, not certain how much more she needed from him to feel he wasn't a threat. Being allowed in the cockpit was certainly a good start but he needed her to know he was on her side.

She smirked. "Well, if what they say is true, we've got a whole flock of Simulants out there thinking the exact same thing for a whole different reason," she reminded him, then carried on with the bloom of a larger smile rounding the cheeks on her heart-shaped face. "Constance," she said, though it took a minute for John to realize she was offering her name and not just spouting words.

"John," he returned with his own thin smile. "Sorry I can't offer to shake your hand."

She chuckled at that, eyes ahead as she settled back after pre-checks with systems go and clearance granted for their lone and lonely mission.


	20. Chapter 20

"Don't worry. I promise I won't take advantage of you," Captain Haywood said into the stretch of silence that had extended between them in the minutes since the Proteus had become a spec against their view-screen.

John frowned slightly at the restraints which he'd grown to ignore, their pressure against his wrists almost a phantom pain that dulled into the back of his mind. "It hadn't occurred to me to be worried," he admitted.

Constance all but rolled her eyes at that response, fingers prodding at controls that held no significance to John himself. She gave a short sigh, wistful and accepting. "Not too bright, are you?" she proclaimed.

John wasn't exactly sure what she meant by that. He wasn't entirely sure he wanted to admit ignorance to it either. He settled for a shrug instead and a glance cast inwards as the woman sat back, shoes up on the console, and leaned her head into the cradle of her crossed arms, elbows pointing up at the ceiling. From what had seemed like a no-nonsense sort of soldier, the captain was far more overbearing that she was strict. She had the sort of presence that made a large room feel small. Sitting in a cramped cockpit together, John could almost feel the walls closing in around him. He was used to her type but he was hardly enamored of them. Bossy was only fun when there was someone else being bossed at. Still, her willingness was his passport. Civility on his part was an easy price to pay.

Not that he paid it graciously. "Suppose I never really thought to ask myself what kind of crazy person they got to agree to a high-risk scouting mission alone with a convicted killer," he said with nonchalance, chin tilted high.

Constance's laugh was like bubbles breaking against the surface of chocolate milk. "Just your regular type of crazy. Stir-crazy. Not killing-spree space dementia or anything."

"I wasn't convicted of a killing spree."

"Nope. Just cut a man's throat." She let the heel of her boot cling to the cusp of the dash, her smile wide and playful. "Didn't have much time to look it all up but they gave me the gist of it. Nothing that explained why you're here," she lead, keeping questions up to him to form as she watched with soulful eyes.

John shrugged once more, fingers bouncing idly. "I want to help," he supplied.

Constance's large eyes narrowed with a smirk. "You don't strike me as the make amends, karma type. Give off more of a 'man's gotta do what a man's gotta do' vibe," she said, looking him over as she did. "Don't get me wrong; I like it. But you're no good Samaritan or whatever it is they call those yuppy good-doer types."

Any idea that this was going to be an easy trip was quickly disappearing. John wasn't convinced he enjoyed this less than silence, though. It would be odd to sit quietly, just two people scouting through space looking for blots in the sky without a word exchanged. He supposed they had to talk about something, no matter how many times he felt he'd already gone over it in the months past. She, at least, had some investment in his plans as far as they extended into their shared responsibilities. He still didn't relish explaining himself. The right words always fled when needed.

Clearing his throat and licking his lips, John scrunched his chin on an honest reply that stuck to the point out of necessity. "I have a friend on the ship still. And I don't exactly trust anyone else to save him."

Constance understood him about as well as expected. "I've been in the military for most of my life. Gatta say, if your friend's alive, there's not a person on the payroll who'd leave him behind."

"That's sort of the problem. He's not alive."

"You're here to rescue an AI?" she asked, her thin brows raised with a tilt of judgment cast in her curious stare.

John hated that look as much as he'd expected it. "He's not an AI. He's human intelligence that's just sort of... having an indefinite out-of-body experience."

"Oh. A _hologram_." Constance put her feet back on the ground with the echo of rubber soles on metal as she leaned forward, her face still stretched with uncertainty as she gave him a thin-lipped, false smile. "You know they're not really people, yeah?"

"It's all been explained to me very thoroughly, yes," John countered. His jaw was already stiff with the effort not to clench proven futile. His molars protested the treatment but oh how he hated these talks. He hated that he knew to expect them based mostly on the fact that they were once words he might have spoken to someone similarly possessed. He saw her rank and knew her training; knew what it was that had been taught as fact and what expectations those facts precluded. Her ignorance had once been his under the same tutelage and with the same best intentions. And he didn't expect her to change her mind any easier than he had his own. "I'm not one of those people who can't let go of the past. I never knew him when he was alive. This has nothing to do with me wanting to preserve something lost or control the outcome of my actions. I've only ever known him as the hologram he is now. And I just think... what they created has a mind of his own. And he deserves to live."

Despite the customary arguments having been met with prerequisite doubts, Constance's smile and knowing glint in her eyes was not the follow-up John had expected. "So, what's he like?" she asked, chin on fist.

"Hm?"

"Your friend."

John scowled, looking out the view-screen into the endless sea of space. "Don't say it like that."

"Like what?" she asked.

"You know what."

Constance feigned innocence as she sat straight in her seat, hands out in mock surrender. "Uh huh. Look, I didn't say anything. Just making conversation. What's wrong with wanting to know a little bit about this holographic human that's got you saddled in with me for the long, dull ride? Ever tried playing I-Spy in a space scouter? You have any idea how many things start with the letter S? Sun. Stars. Satellites. Ship. Saturn. Seriously, it's ridiculous. I once had some asshole try me with the letter V. Sorry, but 'void' and 'vacuum' don't count as something you can spy. Dumb-ass."

Despite himself, John did smile slightly at that, admiring in a way the manner in which she steered away from fruitless confrontation. "Sounds boring," he said.

"Like you wouldn't believe." Constance shook her head, making a show out of self-pity. "Outside arrivals and departures, a trained monkey could do most of my job. Still more fun than sitting back and taking the safe ride into Triton again, though. But, yeah, if it weren't for the sex, I'd have transferred years ago."

"...Right." John kept his eyes trained on a single white light in the black, not sure he trusted himself to look elsewhere. "So you, uh-"

"We get bored of playing I-Spy pretty quickly on missions."

John did his best to play it cool as he nodded, imagining so, though the restraints that kept his arms pinned to the armrests were beginning to feel noticeable again.

Constance chuckled. "Like I said: I promise I won't take advantage of you."

The words were certainly becoming a little more relevant the more she spoke. "Thanks," he said, his hands curling self-consciously into fists all the same.

"You're halfway there to the proper response. Gatta love a fast learner."

"And what is the proper response?" John asked.

Constance crossed her arms behind her head again, an expression of proud aggression splitting a smile across her face. "Touch me and die," she quoted, oscillating gently on the turn of her chair.

It was so obvious as to be ridiculous. John cracked a smile he'd have rather hid as he watched her enjoy her little moment. "Constance?"

"Yeah?"

"Has anyone ever told you you're mental?"

"He asked while beaming at her in a way that said ' _can I be you when I grow up_ '?" She laughed at the ceiling as she let her chair spin, coming to stop only when she put her feet up once more on a safe section of her command panel. "Consider that lesson one: there's a difference between acknowledging a threat and respecting one."

She couldn't have been more than ten years John's senior but in military terms, that could easily be a lifetime. He didn't mind her boasting when she'd pretty well given his own words as example of how soft he'd grown in his time spent as a civilian. He certainly had enough enemies in the world just as a voice of dissension. Perhaps he needed a crash course in adversary handling. "Understood," he said, letting the rest go without comment. "Is this going to be a continuing thing?"

Constance shrugged. "Just making conversation. They told me to not wait for you if anything were to happen during evac. I thought it was because you're a convict. Sort of getting the idea now that it's a bit more than that. They fully expect you to put up a fight on this whole hologram front, huh?"

"Wasn't aware I needed to still. You going to try and stop me?"

"Can't see a reason to." She shrugged again, letting her arms fall to cross against her stomach as she looked out, scanning the stars. "It's got nothing to do with me if you want to smuggle your electronic boyfriend off the ship."

John winced slightly, his eyes remaining closed as he breathed through the vocalization of so much he'd rather not be said. "You think I'm stupid enough to fall in love with a hologram?" he asked, throat slightly dry with a worry in the air.

"I haven't exactly known you all that long but I'd say that's a strong affirmative," Constance replied. Smart enough in her own ways, she didn't smile or rub it in. She kept her eyes ahead, doing her job, offering him a profile view of coordinated indifference. "Like I said, its got nothing to do with me. But I will knock your ass out and drag you onto this ship if I have to. So try and be a gentleman and not make me chase you down first. I don't want to leave anyone behind any more than you do. Got it?"

John did. He remembered the hierarchy. He knew what she would do. "I'll make better progress if you go easy on the restraints once we get there," he pointed out, fists still clenched and tendons flexing against the bands.

Constance shook her head with a tut from her tongue. "See? You weren't listening. What's rule number one?"

"So this is respecting me as a threat, huh?" John asked, making a show of testing his restraints.

"I'm not the one who got convicted of murder so don't blame me. You don't get handed down trust; you earn it."

"I earned it on the Endeavor 1," John listed. "I earned it with Commissioner Holmes."

"Rule number two: being wrong in the right crowd isn't any better than being wrong on your own. Endeavor 1 can treat you however they like but that doesn't mean I'm not going to keep a gun on me and an eye on you."

"How many rules are there exactly?"

Constance shrugged, frowning thoughtfully towards her screen. "We could try I-Spy instead for a bit but I have to warn you, it can sometimes put me in the mood."

"You know, the fact that they warned you about me but not me about you is kind of insulting," John said, not quite sure whether or not the woman was leading him on with some elaborate joke or serious about the things she said. Neither was necessarily the better from the person currently in control of the rest of his life.

Constance only smiled, sparing him a wrinkled wink. "We're all mad, John," she said. "We've all been out here for too long. Better the madness you can reason with than the madness that you can't."

Despite his wish to claim otherwise, too often she spoke the truth.

It took two days to locate the Endeavor 1. Constance called it outstanding luck to have happened upon it in just under forty-eight hours--just ten games of twenty questions and a few awkward conversations into their indeterminate cruise. Every minute they hadn't yet found it was a minute spent waiting for the sounds of sirens as they braced for an explosion's wake. The ship was, as warned, a black spot in the starry sky that moved to blot out stars once visible and birth light into what was once seen as empty space. Locked tight to his chair, John's jubilation was confined to the lift of a smile against his cheeks. It was hard to tell which parts were the hard part now over with the rest all set to fall easily in place. Finding Endeavor 1 was certainly one obstacle down in a line of exponentially greater odds. He liked to think the hard part was over all the same. Certainly being within visual of his current life's ambition counted a great deal towards fulfillment. All the same, he did his best to not seem too pleased with their progress least some spiteful god somewhere in the universe decide this to be the perfect moment to join in with Constance in teaching him a lesson in defying fate.

Constance herself was at once all business. She dialed in on instrument panels which seemed to be mostly blinking lights and flashing numbers, rotating this and switching that. They were moving closer to the ship--that mattered--and things that hadn't been on before were now flashing green-generally a good sign--and so John didn't bother asking for specifics. He couldn't help either way.

Clicking over a few more dials, Captain Haywood looked up at the array just above her head as she began to speak, loudly and clearly. "Endeavor 1, this is Explorer 5 requesting permission to dock. Anyone copy?" she asked. She did not sit idle in the pause for reply, her eyes chasing readouts as a wild hunt focused down into a set point in space.

The voice that replied was not one John knew but not in the least unwelcome to hear. "We read you, Explorer 5," it said. "You by yourself out there?"

"You could say that. Just transmitted our current location back to the nearest relay station, though, so that's not going to be the case much longer. Got a fleet on its way. For better or worse, we got you now, Endeavor 1," Constance assured the man on the other end.

"Right. Well, things have been quiet so far but--"

"The only reason it's been quiet is because we weren't stupid enough to transmit our location," a very familiar voice interrupted, talking over the attending personnel until he shut up and listened with his presumed authority. "Unless this fleet is only a few hours away, your idiot scouter has just doomed our efforts."

"You don't know that," another faceless voice argued from the background.

"Shall I compose a list of things I've said and things I've been right about for you to compare? I think you'll find the two columns match."

Though the discussion in the background seemed hardly at an end, the original shipmate returned to the foreground with apt attention to their reply. "Explorer 5, you're cleared to dock. Please proceed to the private hanger on our bow. It'll be the little blue light. System's power isn't going to get you much more than that."

"I'm sure we'll find it. Explorer out." Constance pushed against another button and a green light went dark. Brows raised high with an unamused smile on her face, she grasped the steering column with both hands and a sigh. "Well," she said with a shake of her head and a tone of sarcasm seeping in. "Someone sounds happy to see us."

John nodded, trying to swallow the relief that was a grin and the threat of a laugh in maintenance of a cool exterior that didn't so easily delight. He was back.


	21. Chapter 21

John wasn't surprised to see Lestrade waiting to greet him in the hanger. Of the four crew members still on the Endeavor 1, only he was considered security personnel. The rest were all designated to operations--a pilot, the chief engineer, and the captain. Floating through space, running through worst-case scenarios, he'd doubted anyone would be seen as more expendable from their post than the man responsible for safety and procedures. Sherlock's presence was just a happy coincidence. John felt sure his main reason for coming was to yell at the crew of the Explorer 5 for existing as an unforeseen variable. His glare at seeing Constance march down the ramp in military boots was obvious and unkind. And fleeting. His expression was quite changed when he saw it was John coming in behind her. No, John wasn't surprised in the least to see them but they were most certainly surprised to see him.

Lestrade almost seemed to do a double take, his confused smile giving evidence to relief as he stepped forward, hand out to Constance as she turned over the controls to John's altered-mass cuffs.

"From what I hear, you all know this man," Constance said, gesturing to John with a kick of her chin as she left security to do its job.

It's job seemed to be to let John go. The stress against his wrists and ankles lessened slowly until it was nothing but the weight of air. John rubbed at his skin, his shoulders no longer straining against the pull, as he smiled his thanks to the aged man who pocketed the controls with his own pleasant grin.

"Yeah, we know him," Lestrade said, shaking his head in the continuation of subtle confusion. "John. Wow. Well, good to see you're not dead but I have to admit I'm a little surprised you're here."

"Convicted killers are always the pick of the litter for suicide missions," John joked. While he didn't care to make light of the situation, he cared even less for explaining his own reasons. He was sure Lestrade knew either way. Somehow it felt like they were all meant to be standing there, as if everything were leading up to this eventuality. There was an energy in the air that granted faith in purpose. Perhaps the universe believed in them even more than they did.

With a smirk and a pat of John's shoulder, Lestrade let their reunion remain short and to the point, their plight never forgotten even in the wake of surprise. "How far out is your fleet?" he asked, looking to Constance for answers as she was most certainly the one in charge of the Explorer-class scouter.

"It was estimated about five days to Gamma when we set off," she explained. "With our coordinates en-route they'll know exactly where to come and with their engine capabilities, I think we're looking at very quick turnaround."

Lestrade's face mused over the information. "Five days, huh? Not too bad. Don't you think?" He turned to look at Sherlock over his shoulder, the hologram having stood back from the short round of pleasantries and business.

Sherlock said nothing, his eyes pinned to John with an expression on his face that demanded the quiet that fell in the absence of an answer. That strictly business, arrogant attitude must have taken another route to the hanger, leaving only Sherlock with thin walls raised, barely containing anything within the facade of broken indifference. He stared at John like they were the only people in the room. It could have been a glitch but it was most assuredly far worse than that. It warmed John to see it even as he pitied the feelings themselves.

"Hey," John said, stepping closer as Lestrade and Constance could certainly handle things without either of them.

Sherlock's eyes swirled with a turmoil of colors even as his lips pulled tight into a grimace. "You're an idiot," he half-whispered, his voice harsh. "You were safe."

"Come on, you didn't even know I was alive until I stepped out of that scouter."

"Better to hope you recovered than watch you die again." There was that glitch again, that hole breaking through at the epicenter of the cracks. There was that rouge emotion that tried to masquerade as anger. Sherlock tried to reel it in but his efforts shone only in the tightness in which his words were uttered.

John wanted to touch him, to place his hand against his shoulder with steadying weight. He settled for trying to close in on the space between them. He tilted his head to share the air near his face, falling into the security of a moment in which nothing else existed. "You're not going to watch me die," he promised, speaking only to him with expectations of comfort. "I'm here to save you."

Sherlock stepped back, breaking out of the security of their intimate island. "You should have stayed away," he insisted, taking several more steps in the direction of his heels as he moved towards the doors. He seemed to remember then that they, in fact, had an audience. He turned and left without another word spoken, the absence of sound in his retreat almost more resounding that the steady beat of boots as he walked straight through the closed door like a ghost on an unalterable course.

John considered running after him but for the attention, he still garnered from those that remained.

"Heartbreaking reunion," Constance teased, her arms crossed and smile wide. "Beautiful stuff."

Lestrade shook his head, brows raised in shared sentiment, as he gestured and lead them to follow him through the doors now made open into the rest of the waiting ship. "I know deep down he's rather pleased to see you. No one carries on the way he did who doesn't care," he offered in regards to the public display.

John took little comfort in the validation of his fears. Still, he had questions and no one knew the answers better than the officer who knew them both best. "How's he been?" he asked, noting as an afterthought that Constance had taken to walking behind him, true to her word in not trusting him on blind faith alone.

Lestrade shrugged his broad shoulders, head tilting as though to counterweight the crooked turn of his lips. "Well, not great," he said. "Had all sorts of trouble with him in the start. The screaming alone got him turned off. He wouldn't let us leave you alone in the medical bay, wanted guards posted, wanted lists of all the patients you'd seen. No one was listening so he just made as much noise as possible. Shut him down maybe five hours after you were found half dead with blood coming out your eyes. Turned him back on once I found the weapons stash--Captain had no problem signing that release with proper evidence finally. Sherlock asked about you but I didn't have anything to say other than that you lived long enough to be handed over to the facilities on Triton for treatment. Then it was just dealing with this nasty business."

John nodded along, not agreeing but comprehending and trying not to judge. "We heard him over the radio."

"Yeah, his new favorite game is apparently driving the captain up the wall. Captain's still having a hard time with all this. The engines dying when we tried to change course is pretty convincing evidence, though. He grudgingly listens to and follows Sherlock's council but he's not happy about it."

No, most people weren't.

John read the sighs on the walls as they walked, reading from them cues that directed their steps in as much as Lestrade did. Bridge this way, briefing room that way, elevators with security access panels leading the way to further exploration below. The emergency lighting had a yellow glow to it and cast darker shadows in the corners of the walls. Even with an atmosphere of contained panic, though, A deck was a much more pristine and elaborate floor than the ones on which John had lived and been detained with its carpeted floors and well-polished wall panels. None of the engraved signs he read told him what he really wanted to know, though. They told him where he was going but retained the knowledge to where he was needed.

"Where do they store the hologram disks?" he asked, keeping in stride beside the officer. "I need to grab Sherlock's before anything happens."

Lestrade looked down at him, his face reading even more confusion than in their initial reunion. "What are you talking about? If you were to take the disk, he'd turn off," he explained as though somehow the functionality of a hologram had been a detail to go over his head.

John frowned, shaking his head. "I think we can manage the rest of the way without him. I just... If anything happens, I don't want to leave him behind."

"John, if anything happens, he has to be left behind."

There were few words which would have filled John more with dread. "What are you talking about?"

The officer took a deep breath, the sounds emitted in the exhale a tell of someone who felt burdened by their task. Disappointed. "Someone needs to be on this ship to initiate the self destruct at the last possible second in order to make sure those escaping have a better chance of making it and those approaching are more assuredly taken out. Honestly, the best thing we can do is not stay here and wait but get on that scouter and get as far away as possible while we still can. You transmitted the coordinates, engines are dead, she's not going anywhere. If our fleet gets here first, Sherlock won't detonate the Endeavor 1. If anyone else does, he can. It's the most cost-effective means of assured resistance with zero loss of life."

"Only if the fleet gets here first," John corrected.

"John,--"

"If you think I'm leaving him here on a fifty/fifty chance, you're dead wrong," John spat, losing his allies quickly, it seemed, to the practicalities that even he had a hard time arguing against. This wasn't his head making a stand--his head was so detached from the scenario as to be nothing more than a burden to his neck. He wasn't certain what options remained but surely there were more attractive ones. He did not come out here to be told no. "If he stays, I stay," he threatened with juvenile intent to coerce.

"Which is why I order you, Lestrade, to make sure he gets back on that scouter before it departs."

John jumped, tingles rippling through his shoulders as he stopped and turned, finding Sherlock standing behind Constance, apparently having held back to follow rather than storming off in advance. He'd had time to school the shock of their reunion and stood cold and calculating once more, exuding the same air of confidence that they'd heard in their earlier transmission. Constance didn't care to be snuck up on and the gun that had been ready in its holster now sat poised in her palm under the curl of well-trained fingers. Sherlock had nothing to fear from a gun but Lestrade put out a hand to the woman's elbow to stay her quick response.

"Let me show you to the bridge," Lestrade offered, waiting as she holstered the gun at her hip with an annoyed curl of her lips. There was an unspoken incentive in leaving John and Sherlock alone, a felt reassurance that they had better matters to be getting on with than arguments between two confused individuals. Constance nodded, sighing loudly as she returned in stride beside the officer, shaking her head with obvious disapproval which Lestrade by all accounts shared.

They were at the kid's table now with the grown-ups all gone off to discuss grown-up things. John would have liked to have challenged the sentiments spared them. This was in every way just as important as every other detail in the mission. For now, though, he was simply pleased that they had a moment alone. Sherlock did not soften in their absence but the harsh lines of resistance bore more of the weight of the things that brought them there. They both had the same intentions in mind. John just wasn't as versed in the sacrifice as Sherlock proved to be.

"I'm not leaving you," John said again, trying to build upon the insistence that continued to be undermined. Even here.

"And I told you I am not watching you die again," Sherlock insisted of his own intentions. His thick brows knit on a frown. "Why are you even here? Anyone could have come here and saved these people. Anyone. It didn't have to be you--why is it you?"

John started then stopped, his mouth open on an empty admission that was hard to swallow but harder still to speak. Instead, he licked his lips and shifted his weight between his feet, squaring off against his own hesitancy in its match against their situation's limitations. "Because we're not done with our book yet," were the words that were the chosen form of the things that really mattered. It sounded stupid but, in a way, it said everything. It spoke of the time spent before and the promise of times to come. It was a linear path with a beginning and a middle but not yet an end. John stepped closer, hands fidgeting at his side, as he pressed the issue with all he had. "I don't remember what chapter we're on but I know you do. You remember everything better than I do and I need you there to tell me what I've missed. You have to come with me because the story's not over yet, Sherlock. I need you to help me finish it."

Sherlock's attempts at hiding a small smile just made him look sad. "You sound like an idiot when you say things like that."

"I know," John admitted, wishing he were braver. He smiled all the same, watching the strange compilation of reluctant happiness grow greater in both respects against the pale, ageless face of the hologram.

Sherlock let his head hang as his shoulders rose on the memory of deep breaths. He shook his head, curls jostling happily in contrast to the mood. "I can't save you if you're on this ship, John. You have to go. We both have a job to do and I can't do mine if you make me yours."

"Do you want to die or do you want to come with me?" John asked, not caring in this instance to put too fine a point on it. "I will do what you want but I don't believe you want to die."

"What else is there for me? Leave with you? To what end?"

"I don't know," he admitted, swallowing hard on the lump in his throat that expanded through his chest. "I thought it was something we could figure out together."

Sherlock chuckled lightly on that, his amusement, like his smile, still colored in sadness. "Well, for the record, I'd prefer our own ship and no more of this jail nonsense," he acquiesced, his grey eyes made thin above the rise of his cheeks and the weight of his brow.

John nodded, licking his lips once more as he tried to keep from smiling too wide on the quietly returned admissions. "Sounds like a plan."

"With one caveat," he said, eyes locked on John's with piercing scrutiny. "When that scouter leaves, you must be on it, whether I am or not. You must agree to leave only my existence to chance if all else fails. If you stay behind, even if our fleet does arrive first, I will request termination purely out of spite. And you know me well enough to know I am prepared to live with that call on spite alone if it punishes you for undervaluing your own life."

John nodded again, not doubting his intentions nor his willingness to follow through in the slightest while his palms burned hot with regretful shame in the face of one who felt the same as him.


	22. Chapter 22

The bridge was much smaller than John had expected. Between the command desks of controls and the wide array of viewscreens, there was only really enough room for ten or so people to gather in familiar proximity. Even with only six bodies and a hologram, it was still a bit cramped. The air was warm all around them from machines that still ran even without the luxury of ambient temperature controls for the room itself. It was not a situation that promised comfort with stress. Instead, it seemed to create from discomfort the heightened sense of urgency that felt like a heavy fog pressing in against them. John would have liked to have stayed near Sherlock, but Sherlock fancied himself in control. He moved himself over to the seated ensign at the pilot's station while leaving John with the other flesh-covered sweat machines that loomed without purpose but not lacking in intent.

John recognized the captain from his trial: a pale-faced man with a face void of wrinkles and a full head of hair that had once called to mind youth but now spoke only of greed in the manner of which Sherlock had instructed John's own thoughts to follow from sight to simple deduction. His propensity to let money make decisions over moral responsibilities was written as much in his deeds as in his demeanor. John had been pleased with his bias when it had once served him in getting to leave his cell to work, but that pleasure was akin to the lingering disgust in knowing even that was all in the captain's favor.

"I know you, don't I?" the captain asked, his uniform no longer pristine with its creases soaked through in perspiration.

John tried to remember to be civil. Tried to. He managed a smile at the very least. "By reputation, I'm sure. I'm Dr. John Watson. I got put away for Sherlock's murder."

"Oh," the man said, shrugging in a dismissive manner that mocked more than it admitted to anything of substance. His smile was a thin pull of closed lips. "More likely a reward was in order," he joked. "Not guilty, though, yes?"

"Certainly going to be my testimony should it be required," Lestrade interjected, perhaps able to see through the fog of urgency that they were not two men who needed to remain engaged in conversation above much more than pleasantries. His speaking on John's behalf certainly did more than John's own words on the subject could supply. The officer gestured to Constance whose hand still hovered close to her gun. "He's here with Captain Haywood to assist in the evacuation."

The ship's captain nodded, his smile growing teeth when he looked at Constance. "Excellent. How soon until we can leave?"

"I can get her out of here right now, sir," she informed him with no small bit of pride.

"Then all that remains is promoting Holmes here to First Officer and our own preparations will be complete." His smug smile said he held little concern for the hologram--perhaps even alluding to a small pleasure in finally getting him out of his hair. He nodded to Constance, leaning in towards another officer standing nearby. "Prep for take-off in an hour," he ordered.

Both the officer and captain Haywood nodded in affirmation, the pair of them exiting the bridge in tandem as a reshuffling within gave them room to depart.

Sherlock looked over his shoulder at John, a silent intent more than a word or phrase shared before he turned back to guide the actions of their pilot.

An hour. John took a deep breath, jaw clenched tight. "Why does Sherlock have to stay behind? Isn't there, an, uh.. a countdown function or some delay so we can get out before we set it off?"

The captain's thin-lipped smile broke with a light chuckle, creases forming at the corner of his eyes. "That's right. You and Holmes worked together on this conspiracy idea. Heard a few rumors you'd lost your senses when it came to these things. Guess the rumors were true." He set his hands on his hips, his stance aggressive and strong, commanding the room's attention with power masked as reason. "Watson, this ship costs several billion dollars. If a fleet can get out here and claim her before any possible Simulant interruption, it's for the best. There isn't a self-destruct sequence on the market that's smart enough to figure out whether the right people are trying to board her. We need a hologram to do that. That's what he's for."

"I'll agree it's a possible function of a hologram but it's not what he's for, sir. That's like saying captains are for going down with their ship."

The twitch in the captain's smile said more than words. "You have a problem with me leaving a hologram behind?" he asked, taking a step forward.

"I have a problem with you acting like it's no big deal." John did not back down in the shadow of the taller man, standing his own with ease in counter to his force. "Besides, why does it have to be his hologram? Why can't you just use a different one? Make a new one?"

Lestrade cleared his throat to clear the tension, steering them away from further confrontation like a true peacekeeper. He didn't step forward but instead kept to his own relaxed posture in a lean against one of the dead computer stalls. He frowned slightly, his eyes on John as it seemed he was intervening not on his behalf, but on that of the captain's. His face said he wished it were different. "While operating a hologram is possible with our current power issues, our limited electricity is insufficient to run the machines that could possibly create a hologram. It's why we have to promote Sherlock to a position that can authorize the self-destruct--we can't make one of the captain at this time."

John breathed out through his nose, trying to think with time ticking away and options disappearing. He glared at the captain, the decision man, the man who knew only the worth of money. "There's none in reserve? You literally only have Sherlock? I need him for my appeal," he lied. "You're telling me I'm going to have to fight this without the victim's testimony?"

The captain all but laughed. "There hasn't been a need to make another. There are very strict guidelines involved, put in place by governments and ethics committees the world over to ensure-"

"John."

The captain stopped speaking with Sherlock's interruption, the whole room giving him their attention even though the hologram had demanded only John's. John had hoped they wouldn't speak in front of others--had preferred their conversations to be in a far more intimate sphere than in the captain's presence. To the captain, John could make a somewhat rational plea. To Sherlock, it was anything but. He turned his head, looking at him, finding something far removed from the obvious reflected in the swirl of his eyes as they melted into blue.

"Your therapist," he said, the slightest smile brightening his face with more than hope--with absolution. Sherlock looked sated and confident, words spoken in revelation.

It took John a moment to understand but when he did, he knew that nothing had been without purpose. "Oh my god," he whispered, his memories holding to he white lettering he'd once read in dread now held in adoration. "I need to get to B deck."

"What's on B deck?" Lestrade asked, pushing himself up to follow with his body what his mind had not yet grasped.

"I am," John explained, watching Sherlock nod and share in a small smile as the answer bloomed before them. He turned to Lestrade, the fog of urgency rolling into a current. "Ella showed me a hologram disk of myself, a copy of my memories used in my trial. She put it in a drawer. Might still be there."

The captain shook his head, still standing like a tower over John. "We're leaving in under hour," he reminded them.

John stood up on his toes in defiance. "No! We are leaving when I've got Sherlock's disk in my hand. You understand me?"

"Do you have any idea who you're speaking to?!"

A better question would be if he cared. John sank down on his heels only for the range of motion to surge back up on his toes again, head bent and skull aimed directly into the face of the surprised captain. The taller man fell backwards, crashing against a computer terminal and bouncing off it onto the floor in a heap of bones that wasn't any more resistant to blunt-force trauma than any other man.

It wasn't worth it to wait to see what the repercussions would be. John tore off out of the room, jogging down the hall where the signs lead the way back down the corridors towards the elevators. He could hear footsteps behind him but nothing worth stopping for. If he could find his way, he had the answer. Nothing was going to stop him now.

Luckily it seemed the man who followed had no intention of stopping him. He met his pace rather than tried to overtake him, not leaping to tackle but matching his stride. "I should really arrest you for that," Lestrade said, taking the lead as he picked up the pace, knowing the halls without the need of signs to guide.

John was only too happy to follow. "And yet I take it you're showing me how to get to Ella's office on the detention block."  
"Going to need security clearance to get there, yeah," he said, the details of his necessity making it all the more perfect that he was on their side. "If anyone asks, you tripped," he advised, painting his own guilt in shades of grey as they stopped at the emergency lift.

John nodded, relief pushing away the pain and dizziness of attacking a man with his head as they pressed on in their wait for the lift's arrival. His heart was beating fast in his chest, adrenalin spiking his tolerance for pain and planting giddiness in his chest that stole breath from his hastened breathing. Rarely had he felt the desire to laugh, cry and shout all at the same time. He hadn't been this high since the war. Feeding that addiction with a victory so close he could already feel its relief was better than any feeling that had come before it. This was the end. This was how it was always supposed to be. And like a good soldier, he'd seen it through to the end with no concessions made to the losers.

The speaker overhead crackled to life as a voice played out from it. "John, with our position transmitted, I'd still very much like everyone off this ship in an hour," Sherlock advised, his absence explained almost in the same moment it had been noticed. "I'll stay with the ensign to make sure you get where you're going but make it quick, okay?"

John nodded though he couldn't see. "Got it. See about getting me that promotion in the interim. Doesn't do any good to find my copy if he doesn't have authorization to do what we need him to do."

"I'm sure I can talk the captain into it. He has a hard head but he's not entirely impervious to reason."

"Yeah, I can tell you all about his hard head if you want," John joked, feeling at the tender spot on his crown.

"I'm sure you could," the hologram replied, his voice thick with amusement. "Holmes out."

The doors to the elevators parted sluggishly under the restrictions of the ship's power and both men quickly flowed inside, helping to close the doors behind them with their hands against the metal as the lift descended regardless of its safety measures. A ship in distress wasn't meant to have men wandering through its halls. It wasn't meant to have it's security locks overridden or give passage through dark placed where memory served between corridors of light. It wasn't meant to defy confidentiality where barriers had traditionally lay. But then again, salvation wasn't supposed to be hidden away in a drawer beside a therapist's chair, forgotten for a time but not forever as its purpose found its time to reveal.


	23. Chapter 23

The last thing John expected to see when he opened his eyes was himself. The flat, 2-D panel of a reflection would have put his mind at ease but the figure had depth and occupied space that no mirror image could conceivably fill. His clothes were different as well--nondescript military jumpsuit instead of the fatigues he'd been assigned by the security officers. There was something very wrong about the man, and very wrong about the odd place in which they both now stood. Was this the real killer? His doppelganger come to gloat or murder him now too? The hum of the computers in the room around them said they were anywhere but on the security deck. There was no reason to believe anything good would come from this. And honestly, no reason to care.

"Hello," the man said, using his own voice as well. "I guess this might be confusing. Uh... Obviously, uh... You're a hologram."

Not so obvious. John scrunched his brow at the doppelganger, not sure if madness was a thing which could be seen or if crazy just was and had no tells. He wasn't hologram. He didn't feel like a hologram. He felt... nothing. Not the air, not the ground, not temperature, not even his own tongue as he moved it across his lips. Nothing.

Oh.

Well, on second thought, perhaps it was a bit obvious.

"They made you from my memories when I was investigated for murdering Sherlock Holmes," the other said, looking nervous. He looked at the wall, his eyes more comfortable looking anywhere but at John given the way he swallowed, shuffled, and spoke. "I don't have long to explain it all but... um... I need you to do something for me. Okay? I, uh... I need you to die for someone."

The fact that it was the strangest thing anyone had ever asked of him was only tamed in the knowledge of who it was that was asking. What on earth would he want with John? What could some hologram do that a person couldn't? Why did he even exist if the 'real' John Watson were this man standing in front of him? It didn't make sense and John didn't care for games. Was this part of his trial? Some mind game? He couldn't think of too much he'd enjoy less than playing the part of a copy in the presence of the original. "I don't understand," he admitted, watching the other man warily, too unsure in his own body to move.

The other John nodded, sliding his hand into the breast of his jumpsuit as he slowly pulled forth a black disk with white lettering that was obscured mostly by his fingers. He bit his lips on a smile, some strange pseudo-expression of happiness on his face as he held it there, procured from the fabric near his heart. This wasn't the John Watson that John Watson knew. It was eerie to watch him stand there as a stranger to him, face alight in ways that existed only in ancient history.

"This is Sherlock Holmes," he said, not looking up from the disk in his hand. "Either he gets left behind, or you do. And whoever gets left behind does so with the understanding that they might have to kill their self by setting the ship to self destruct with them still on it. Sherlock's willing to do that. I don't want him to. I would give my life to save this disk. Which, I guess, either makes this ironic or just sort of.. tragic. Because you will never meet Sherlock. This ship can't run more than one hologram. You only have my word. But I want it to mean more to you than the training in your head that says you have to say yes because you're just a machine."

Why was the crazy John the living one? The hologram could not fathom the sort of brain damage that could cause the other man to cherish that pointless piece of data. Pathetic. Maybe Sarah had been right all along; maybe he was out of touch. So they wanted to switch out one AI for another-okay. There really was no arguing that he was a hologram. That made this his duty. Something that wasn't alive couldn't die so really the idiot standing in front of him was just wasting time with details he couldn't care less about. This was awkward enough as it was. Far better to cut it short and go.

Not that the other John seemed to think so. He just smiled to himself, humming on the expression in a short buzz of amusement as he slid the disk back into it's secured place by his chest. "I remember being you. I remember the taste of my own gun and feeling like nothing matters, and just... just going through the motions because people say it gets better but it sure takes its damn time. I remember feeling helpless and hating everything. Myself, the world, the people around me, just... The best day of my life was being arrested for killing a man because it finally meant something was actually happening in my life that wasn't part of the daily tedium. And that's you. You're that version of me, the version that existed before I met Sherlock Holmes. And this is just one more thing to add to the shit list of our old life; one more reason to believe it all should have ended back when we were part of the war because nothing ever fixed the feelings after. I don't want to ask this of you. But I can't let Sherlock die. And I just... I already know you'll do it but don't say yes because nothing matters. Say yes because _he_ does."

If John could feel a chill, he would. There were things in the mind that just existed and didn't need a voice or even to be acknowledged to be felt and understood and silently known. He didn't talk about... things. Not with anyone. Not even to himself. He didn't need to. They were and he knew. He knew the best times of his life were over, that there was nothing to look forward to, that at best he could just smile and get by and pray for an aneurism to take it all away and out of his own cowardly hands. He wasn't living--and certainly now that definition was true in more respects than just the metaphysical. How had a dead man changed that? How had a hologram changed the prayer from an escape from life to an escape towards it? What had the other John learned that he hadn't? And why did it exist on a hologram disk?

He eyed the stranger, taking some pleasure in being more comfortable than the other in looking at his own face. "What's he like?" he asked, not overly concerned with hiding curiosity behind some mask of other intent when faced with himself.

"Amazing. Annoying as all hell, I mean, for fuck's sake, he is a _master_ of irritation," he said, shaking his head on a memory worth smiling with. "And he is so different from us. He cares about people. He can't relate to them at all, rubs everyone the wrong way, but he cares. Not like us. We relate, we smile, we laugh, but fuck 'um all, am I right?" He laughed again, but nervously this time as though he were forcing himself to be open. He was. And he knew he knew it. He colored pink with embarrassment even as his face pinched on the continuation of his tale, no longer meant to amuse. "He, uh.... he's smart. Very smart. Beautiful eyes. I wish I could show you his eyes. But, uh... everything he has ever done has been for other people. Even when he's being selfish somehow. And he manages to do it in such a way as to make you pissed off at him for it like he's the one being an asshole. He probably has the greatest capacity to love that I have ever known. And somehow I'm the one he got stuck with when he came back as a hologram. His bad luck was my good fortune. I don't look forward to death anymore. I'm not afraid to die, I just... it's not the relief that I'm looking for. I have things to do when I'm with him. All the things we managed to do, we did under the most unimaginable circumstances. And all I can think about is what it's going to be like when we're not in prison or stuck on a ship. What it's like to follow the whims of Sherlock Holmes when there's nothing in our way."

"Do you love him?" John asked, not sure what else to say after listening to his own voice carry on in exaltation of a man he only knew as a victim but seemed far more interesting than that.

The other man bit into his bottom lip, eyes still averted. "What do you think?"

"I think you're a goddamn idiot," he replied. The other John simply nodded with a smile. It didn't change anything either way. He still didn't have a future, whether or not this other man did. "So I just... blow the ship up?"

Other John continued to nod, lips pursed as he bobbed his head like a broken toy. "Yeah, we'll explain all that. The whys and hows and... and just all of it. I guess, um... Are you okay with this?"

"It's a little weird to wake up as a hologram but you're telling me not only will I get to die but it'll be for a good cause?" John shrugged in nonchalance. "I think that's better than I could have hoped for," he admitted without need to filter.

"You'll be blowing up Simulants if you have to make the call."

Now the other man was talking sense. "Oh, _fuck yeah_. Why didn't you say so from the start?"

"Because once you knew, it'd be the only thing you cared about," the man admitted, humor lost and only the soulful look in his eyes remaining. He wasn't averting his gaze anymore and the strain of facing himself was written in his eyes. "For the record... I'm glad I'm not you anymore. But I'm thankful I was you."

John scowled, not interested in any more of this heart-to-heart type conversation. He was a hologram. He didn't have one. Appealing to something that wasn't there was just further proof he'd aged into idiocy with a fool's understanding of life. "That's... nice. Are we done here?" he asked, taking tentative steps and finding mobility not as difficult as he'd imagined in a body made of light.

The other man let his head fall as he moved aside to give him room. "Yeah, we're done. What do you want done with your disk if you don't self destruct?"

"Burn it, break it, shoot it into space. I don't care. Just don't bring me back," he ordered, taking confident strides out of the room that he imagined felt like steps should feel but were nothing but empty and hollow. This wasn't his body. This wasn't his life. Fuck it all and let him go back to the darkness that was purposeful in its emptiness instead false in its pretense of life.

Bring on the Simulants. At least one John Watson still remembered what pleasures they stole from him and had the sense to seek revenge when presented with the choice.


	24. Chapter 24

By the time the fleet arrived, the Endeavor 1 was nothing but a smattering of debris strewn across space with an accompaniment of Simulant derelicts crippled in her destructive wake. The ensuing skirmish was cataloged as the Virgin Battle because nothing irreplaceable was lost. All ships returned with only minor injuries to report while the victory was decisively won. And the unsolved murder of Sherlock Holmes became nothing more than a caveat to be forgotten in the story of the detective inspector who discovered a weapons stash and the ship's captain who managed to save them all. The accomplishments of the dead had no reason to go on record. There was nothing deserving about a hologram that simply did as its programming directed.

At least the murder investigation was reopened. History would do wrong by them both but at least the present operated under assumed authority to undo the wrongs previously made. John had his freedom and all charges stricken from his record. Sherlock still existed. Presumably. Funny thing about technology is how quickly it moves. The Endeavor 1, a mining ship, had an aged hologram model that had been cheap and likely second-hand when outfitted for insurance compliance. The Proteus, flagship of the army and governing services, had only the most up-to-date capabilities. They needed to do a transfer to update him; tech-to-tech rather than man-to-tech as these things were designed and meant. John had hope, though, and it had served him well in the weeks prior. Nothing was lost so long as there was hope.

For all the help he had been, though, Commissioner Holmes wanted nothing to do with any of it. Not with Sherlock. His brother was dead and though he did not put it quite so plainly, it seemed he did not want to suffer the heartache of seeing the man with his eyes but having to still carry the weight of his unalterable demise. Death oversaw everything in his place. John's name for her had never felt more fitting. He almost hoped to never know what it really was; nothing else would ever seem as perfect. But for that reason, for the brother's wish to let the dead rest, John did not mention or ask about Sherlock on the occasions when they met in his office to discuss things that had happened, and things left undone. It was in his office John learned about the destruction of Endeavor 1, about his unanimously decreed innocence, and of Death's priority position as his contact in all things related to holograms.

Despite there being nothing else to say, John found himself in his office again, unrestrained and offered liquor like a welcome guest in the realms of the powers that be. They weren't friends but John appreciated the company of someone so assuredly on his side. It was a nice place to be after so long in adversity. It didn't exactly put his mind at ease to sit on his sofa and sip his brandy, though, when there was always a motive to every meeting. But Holmes was pleasant and even at his most self-serving he was still on the finer side of generous. At least to him. Which was all that mattered. At this point, anyway.

Sitting in his own high-backed chair, Holmes reclined with legs crossed and glass in hand, looking disinterested even though he was the one who called for John. It was all about power and he who cared the least had the most. Political games weren't John's style but they were everything the other man knew. So John played along and let the big man sit in his big chair without contention, content to drink and sit and wait for reasons to spill out as to why he was there.

Holmes spoke as much to his drink as he did to John as his eyes remained set upon the swirl of amber behind glass. "You're not a wealthy man, are you, John?" he asked, statement masquerading as a question.

John shrugged, not in the least ashamed of his financial status, though the subject seemed odd to bring up. "Uh... No. I mean, a doctor's salary is hardly nothing but... well, I don't expect to be paid much for the past six months."

"So you basically have nothing but your skill set," the commissioner stated. "No home, no job, and from what I can gather, not exactly close family ties."

"There a point to this?"

Holmes smiled just slightly, his glass coming to rest on a coaster set on the stately table to his side. His eyes settled on John, the same penetrating stare shared by both brothers now set once more upon him. "I have a job for you. One which you would be an idiot to turn down though I thought I may as well present it to you as though you had an option."

"While taking no small pleasure in reminding me that I don't." John half grimaced though curiosity held him back from holding it against him. Power games and the like. Content was far more important than its initial presentation. "What job?" he asked, leaning forward slightly in his chair.

Holmes clasped his hands, elbows resting on the plush armrests. "Have you ever heard the name James Moriarty?"

"No. Can't say I have."

"We have reason to believe he is the man responsible for the weapons deal with the Simulants utilizing the Endeavor 1. The man responsible for Sherlock's murder. Though I suppose you know him best under the alias Joseph Kerry," he said, each letter of the name articulated to cut.

The name recalled sensations of sickness--in the body, the mind, and in the heart. John bit the inside of his lip, calming himself through the pain, not wanting to jump to conclusions though excitement flooded his blood in anticipation. "What's the job?" he asked again, not wanting to be too obvious in his own desire.

"We employ spies and intelligence agents to look for men such as him. Obviously, they haven't managed to effectively infiltrate his organization or stop him from enacting such criminal plots," Holmes admitted, hints of annoyance through failure peeking through the calm of his exterior. "No one has ever even seen James Moriarty and lived to report back. Which makes this whole matter with the Endeavor 1 rather anomalous. Thus far we have been working more in the way of damage control against his terrorist attacks. You and Sherlock were able to undermine him. I think it's worth seeing if you can do it again."

" _What's the job_?"

Holmes smiled, his lips thin and eyes cold though pleasure was obviously taken in John's eagerness to be told. "I want you to find James Moriarty and bring him down using whatever means necessary," he explained plainly, exchanging pleasure for boredom as he looked away again and picked his glass up once more. "I will supply you with a ship, a crew, and fund all related expenses. Everything state of the art, of course--including the hologram equipment."

John nodded as he listened. "So you want to pay me to do what Sherlock and I would want to do anyway?"

"You wouldn't be able to afford to do it if I didn't," the older man replied, eyes growing colder in their gaze, unfriendly in their intensity and propensity to glare. "Don't mistake my meaning, however," he said. "This is a matter of extreme interest to the continued war efforts and at-home safety of the human race. Qualified teams have given us very little in results. I'm hoping that will not be the case with a lucky one."

John nodded once more, understanding the said and unsaid that accompanied it in lies that protected interests of the heart far away from the rationale of the mind. "I'll have to ask him, but I can't imagine Sherlock saying no to a chance to track down his killer," he said, knowing enough to say yes but favoring the symbolism of a query.

"Think it over if you must. I've started work on the preparations regardless. You will say yes, Dr. Watson," the commissioner promised

"Yeah, but with an attitude like that, I won't say thank you."

Holmes' smirk fell to the mortal realms of pleasant amusement and he held his brandy to his lips. "You can thank me with results," he mused, drinking at the close.

John held his own glass, a toast imagined in the exchange of glances, as he tipped his head back and finished his own.

On the walk back to his room, it was all John could do not to further imagine the future Holmes had offered them. Things like the cost of operating a hologram had never been thoughts he'd had time to worry about. They were details of lesser importance that relied too heavily on the success of more immediate trials. It was only in recent weeks he'd had the luxury to worry about such ordinary things like finances, shelter, and careers. And he had worried, with the consolation that it had been and would be worth it. Concern for his own future was a recent development, though in fairness it wasn't just his anymore. He shared it with Sherlock--or would once the transfer was complete.

They promised higher digital resolution and better quality of sound. It wouldn't make him a better detective nor a better human being, but technology loved to improve upon aesthetics; something all the better to look at and to never, ever touch. Tactile exclusion was part of the reason Sherlock needed him, prejudice being another. And John needed Sherlock in ways that had no qualifying voice. He just did. Which was why it was their future, not his, that excited him. Holmes' offer was everything they could hope for with the mild exchange of working for the man himself in realms of their own united interests. Another promise of distraction from things that festered when brought into focus. Not his intention but part of the appeal. John liked keeping busy. It settled his thoughts--thoughts too often revolving around things outside his control and involving the unchangeable nature of the past. A job they could both do would be very good indeed and nothing was more worthy than the capture of the man who had started it all.

Hardly an ambassador, Holmes had made sure John had been given a designated suite upon his successful return as the Proteus was hardly a passenger cruiser and more often saw to delegates than normal men. It was much nicer than the cell he'd been in previously though such comforts almost put him less at ease. John placed his palm against the entry and watched the security lights turn green in permit to his passage before walking inside the darkened room where a book waited for him to return to and begin again. Though the lights were out, the room was hardly dark. The light emissions from the hologram sitting in his chair were more than enough to dimly illuminate the seating area though the man himself glowed like a back-lit photograph, too crisp to be confused with a ghost.

John hadn't thought there was anything wrong with the hologram before but the colors seemed truer, the rays more focused, and the realism of his manufactured form was sharper in every detail. Even the foil-like swirling of dominant colors in his eyes were more smooth a transition from their greens into grey.

Sherlock's proud smile pulled at newly revealed wrinkles that had been lost before in the haze of color-bleed. "Surprise," he said, standing up from the chair to slowly, soundlessly, walk over to where John stood in the entryway with the door sliding closed behind him.

John smiled, voice lost for a moment as he put his hand out to touch him, hope existing in those seconds before his skin passed through the hard lines of Sherlock's new body, fingers disappearing beneath the promise of a warm arm. It was beautiful, really, and perfect in nearly every way. But all those improvements in sound and color could not truly create something solid from light. Man could not recreate man. Rolling his fingers into a fist, John closed tight on the emptiness inside him that seemed to pool and stretch through blood to resonate with a wanting that existed as an emptiness inside himself.

He had to hope. Pointlessly, futilely, he had to keep believing one day it might not be so. But for now, all he could do was smile, and be thankful for all that was with a feigned ignorance to all that was not and which remained forever as a brilliantly masked emptiness.


End file.
